V] 


V 


SIGNAL  FIRES 


NEW    YORK: 
DAYTON     AND     B  U  B  D  TO  K , 

29    ANN    STREET. 
185G. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S56,  by 
DAYTON    AND    BUEDICK, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


DAV1KS   AND    KOBKKTS, 

Stereotypes, 
201  William  Street,  New  York. 


0f  Ci  •tills. 


Page 

DEDICATION 5 

PREFACE 7 

THE    HOUR    AND    THE    MAN 9 

BORN    HERO 14 

GALLANT    LOVES |5 

THE    NEBRASKA   BISON-HUNT 18 

THE    DECISION gQ 

THE    CHOICE gg 

THE  SOUTH  PASS 43 

FREMONT'S  PEAK 47 

TO  "  BROMUS,"  ON  FREMONT'S  PEAK 51 

THE  CROSS  ON  ROCK  INDEPENDENCE 54 

THE  CANON QQ 


M278SGO 


iv  TABLE    OF     CONTENTS. 

Pase 

RUNNING    THE    CA1VON 07 

THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK 73 

A   NIGHT   BY    LAKE    TLAMATH 78 

BASIL    LAJEUNESSE.       A    THRENODY 88 

DEFEAT   OF   THE   WAH-LAH-WAH-LAHS 91 

THE    RIDE    OF   ONE    HUNDRED 101 

CONQUEST    ENDED 107 

TO    CAPTAIN  J.   C.  FREMONT.       FROM    THE    SPANISH.  .  113 

FAREWELL    TO    "  SACRAMENTO" 110 

THE    PRAIRIE    CAMP 121 

SEQUEL   TO    THE    PRAIRIE    CAMP 132 

THE    OATH 130 

BACKING    OF    FRIENDS 1  89 

CROSSING  THE   WAHSACH 142 

DEFERRED,    NOT    LOST 145 

RESUME 149 


to  you,  YOUNG  MEN  !  for  ye  are  strong, 

And,  being  strong,  ye  should  be  merciful, 
And  WISE  withal,  to  battle  against  wrong 

That  so  the  downfall  of  her  citadel 
Mar  not  the  pillared  fanes  where  true  hearts  throng, 

And  sacred  memories  veiled  in  silence  dwell. 
Gleams  of  a  Life,  like  watchfires  on  our  hills, 

Throbs  of  a  heart  that  dared  what  man  MAT  dare, 
Who  conquered  but  to  save,  and  bowed  stern  wills 

By  pity,  teaching  triumph  to  forbear — 
These  are  my  Song — our  Hope — and  the  Despair 

Of  anarch  Misrule  ; — let  them  be  to  yon 
As  glorious  banners  in  the  storm-rent  air — 

As  pulses  of  new  life,  heroic,  calm,  and  true. 


IF  any  open  this  Volume  who  have  not  read  some  one  of 
the  Lives  of  FREMONT,  the  writer  can  only  desire  that 
they  would  do  so,  first  of  all,  and  then  return  to  these 
pages  with  a  witness,  which  will  compel  them  to  confess 
that  poetic  enihusiasm  has  not  carried  him  beyond  the 
record. 

The  Life  of  a  public  man  is  our  possession,  for  good  or 
'11 ;  and  where  it  seems  preeminently  for  good,  as  with  the 
case  in  hand,  there  is  something  more  than  propriety  in 
making  use  of  it. 

It  is  believed  that  the  passing  of  the  momentary  interest 
which  has  brought  the  name  of  FREMONT  before  us,  will 
not  diminish  the  permanent  value  which  it  bears  for  all, 
and  especially  for  the  young,  who  are  just  entering  the 
ranks  in  the  rigid  Battle  of  Life. 

These  Poems  are  offered  at  this  time,  not  only  for  the 
t  perennial  excellence  of  the  Subject,  but  equally  for  the 
vital  interest  of  the  Moment.  The  crisis  before  us  is  one 
which  puts  a  new  aspect  on  the  whole  political  world. 
The  Scholar,  the  Poet,  the  Plowman,  the  Man  of  Business, 
and  the  Man  of  Leisure,  have  all  an  interest  visibly  at 
ytake;  and  all  seem  conscious  of  the  vitality  of  that 
interest. 


vjjj  PKEFAOE. 

No  mere  political  question  ever  has  called  out,  nor  per 
haps  ever  can  call  out,  such  an  array  of  combined  moral 
and  mental  forces,  as  that  which  has  already  taken  the 
field  for  National  Regeneration ;  and  the  tide  seems  only 
at  mid-flood. 

If  this  writer  could  flatter  himself  that  his  effort  would 
in  some  degree  swell  the  tide-waves  of  that  setting  flood, 
and  strengthen  the  force  that  would  repel  the  aggressions 
of  Slavery,  he  could  easily  forego  the  hope  of  a  permanent 
value  in  his  work,  or  any  concern  for  the  criticism  of  non- 
combatant  friends,  who  fancy  that  to  crush  the  aggressive 
element  of  Slavery  touches  not  its  vitality ;  as  if  its  very 
essence  was  not  aggression. 

The  success  or  failure  of  the  present  movement  will  not 
reach  the  heroic  worth  of  the  subject,  nor  the  permanent 
character  of  the  most  of  these  Poems ;  where  the  exigen 
cies  of  the  case  have  crowded  the  task  of  a  longer  period 
into  some  fourteen  days— but  to  our  Country  the  question 
is  of  vast  importance.  The  success  which  Freedom  has  a 
right  to  expect,  at  the  hands  of  her  lovers,  will  be  the 
turning-point  in  the  long  history  of  her  disasters— hence 
forth  to  become  the  story  of  her  steady  and  unceasing 
progress  toward  perfect  victory. 

In  the  faith  that  such  is  the  crisis,  and  the  hope  that 
these  gleams  from  a  noble  life  may  add  one  ray  to  the  new 
dawn,  they  are  flung  out,  and  committed  to  their  fate,  by 


SIGNAL  FIRES. 


THE   HOUR   AND   THE   MAN. 

THERE  are  times  of  bodeful  peril,  in  the  story  of 

a  Land, 
When  the  shadow  of  some  awful  doom  reels,  like 

the  dial-hand 

Of  Ahaz,  back  in  darkness  across  its  glory's  path, 
No  more  a  sign  of  promise,  but  Jehovah's  frown 

of  wrath. 

r 

As  the   earth's   white  blood  sinks,   curdling,  from 
veined  fount  and  well, 

When  the  cramps  of  earthquake  spasms  her  in 
ward  anguish  tell, 

1* 


10  THE    HOUE    AND    THE    MAN. 

So  the   full  heart  of   a  people,  with  a  moment's 

fearful  hush, 
Predicts    the   moral    tempest  and    the    passion's 

whirlwind  rush 

Wo  worth  the  hope  of  nations,  if  in  that  awful 
hour 

They  rea*d  not  well  the  judgment  signs  that  darkly 
round  them  lower  ; 

And  wo,  if,  when  the  storm  is  come  upon  the 
drifting  realm, 

A  brave  right-hand,  like  iron,  hold  not  the  shud 
dering  helm  ! 

No  stripling's  milky  fingers,  in  tender  nonage  soft, 
May  nail  the  nation's  banner  where  the  tempest 

howls  ;.if>ff. ; 
No  graybeard's  old  and  palsied  hand,  that  shakes 

his  life-sands  faster, 
May  grasp  the  helm,  and  o'er  the  waves  ride  reg- 

riant,  as  their  master  ! 

But  the  nerves  of  fiery  Manhood,  in  many  a  dan 
ger  tried, 


THE    II  CUE    AND    THE    MAN.  ]_]_ 

Wiih  the  quick  blood  of  young  valor,  to  the  calm 

of  years  allied, 
With  the  hero's  eagle  glances,  and  the  sage's 

thoughtful  face, 
Mark  the  LEADER  called  by  Providence  to  peril's 

lofty  place. 

We  are  drifting  on  the  breakers,  where  the  whiten 
ing  water  rolls, 

And  the  beat  of  hearts  prophetic  as  a  solemn  surf- 
bell  tolls  ; 

While  the  yeasty  wrath  of  millions  that  warring 
passions  urge, 

Boils  under,  and  breaks  round  us — a  Maelstrom's 
fickle  surge. 

Thank  God !  the  land  is  rousing,  like  a  giant  from 

its  sleep  ; 
Heart  leaps  to  heart  responsive,  "  deep  answering 

to  deep  ;" 
The  pulses  of  Humanity  have  swelled  the  civic 

veins, 
And    a   cry   of    "  Freedom  !"   thunders   from  the 

mountains  and  the  plains. 


12  THE    HOUK    AND    THE    MAN. 

Thank  God  !  that  while  the  Hour  is  struck,  we 

have  the  living  MAN 
To   bear   our  eagle   banner    against  the    spoiler's 

van, 
Strong  hand  to  wield  the  wavering  helm,  warm 

heart,  and  coolest  brain, 
Heroic  Sage,  wise  Hero — a  crowned  soul  again  ! 

Bold    Nursling   of   the   Mountains   that  rear    the 

brave  and  free, 
Our  nation's  periled  fortunes  are,  under  God,  with 

thee  ; 
Our  earthly  hope  is  in  thee  by  a  rescued  People 

called, 
Strong  in  their  true  hearts  round  thee,  in  a  living 

fortress  walled. 

Ah,  wo  !  if  through  our  blindness,  or  the  hope  of 

sin's  reward, 

We  see  not  in  thy  coming  the  finger  of  the  Lord  ; 
Then  darker,  and  yet  darker,  along  our  downward 

track, 
Must  gloom  our  night  of  ruin,  till  we  strike  the 

solid  black  ! 


THE    HOUK    AND    THE    MAN.  13 

But  no !  a  nation's  fiat  is  going  forth  to-day, 

"  Thus    far,    oh,   human  bondage,    and   here   thy 

waves  must  stay  ; 
We  have  lifted  up  our  banner,  that,  like  a  tongue 

of  flame, 
Calls  FREMONT  to  the  victory,  with  FREEDOM  in 

his  name  /" 


BORN    LEADER. 


GREAT  souls  are  their  own  fate,  arid  but  the  strong 

Are  the  pre-destined  :   in  a  conquerless 

And  wise  Will  works  the  magic  of  success  ; 
Tower-high  invites  the  lightning,  mountain-high 
Soars  above  thunder  in  a  cloudless  sky, 

And  spreads  below  the  mining  sap  of  wrong. 

Such  is  the  Hero  on  whose  brows  belong 
The  regal  wreaths  of  natural  sovereignty, 

Around  whose  footsteps  well  the  springs  of  Song, 
And  whose  calm  paths  are  steep  with  majesty. 
Climb  there  who  will,  they  cannot  hold  him  back  • 

His  eye  is  upward,  and  his  foot  is  firm  ; 
He  rears  wronged  Honor  to  his  eagle  track, 

Arid  dates  anew  old  Right's  expiring  term. 


GALLANT   LOVES. 


WE  love  the  Lover  who  dares  to  love 

High  beauty  by  peril  guarded  ; 
Your  fabled  Dragon,  whose  jaws  are  rough 
With  serrate  fangs  below  and  above, 
Or  the  proud  sire's  wrath — a  sterner  stuff! 

Has  spurr'd  him,  but  not  retarded. 

We  love  the  Beauty  whose  heart  is  true 

To  a  Hero  yet  unlaureled, 
The  old  affection,  to  kindred  due, 
Still  dear,  but  holier  yet  the  new 
That  buoys  her  up — and  has  borne  her  through, 

Though  rival  empires  quarreled  ! 


IQ  GALLANT    LOVES. 

Our  hearts  throb  luminous  as  a  star, 
To  gladden  "  Lord  Ullin's  Daughter  ;" 

Like  his  steed  they  leap  with  "  young  Lochinvar," 

And  exult  as  the  Viking's  keel  afar 

His  foes'  "  black  hulk,"  with  a  thunder-jar, 

Drives  down  through  the  night-"  black  water." 

But  a  better  triumph  earns  the  meed 

Of  his  nobler  praise,  who,  rather, 
By  the  wise  man's  word,  and  the  hero's  deed, 
Can  twine  with  olive  his  Spartan  reed, 
And,  led  by  Beauty,  can  conquer  and  feed 

The  Pride  of  an  angry  father  ! 

Then  give  us  one  cheer  for  old  Romance, 

Wild  riding  with  wilder  chases, 
One  round  for  the  victor's  spur  and  lance  ; 
But  peals,  redoubled  to  heaven's  expanse, 
With  our  Leader's  name,  till  the  white  clouds  dance  ; 

And  a  three-times-three  for  Jessie's  ! 

Ah,  Beauty's  eye  in  its  love-light  hath 

Some  gleam  of  a  gift  prophetic  ; 
She  knew  the  valor  that  dared  the  wrath 


GALLANT    LOVES.  17 

Of  Power  and  Honor,  could  find  a  path 
To  both,  unawed  by  peril  and  scath, 
Unallured  by  lights  erratic. 

By  her  own  worth,  which  his  worth  could  win, 

She  crowned  him  as  very  worthy  ; 
And  thy  Hearts,  oh,  grateful  Land  !  begin 
To  echo  her  voice,  with  a  choral  din, 
With  the  old  man's  pride  and  her  love  mixed  in 

The  shout  that  is  pealing  o'er  thee  ! 

Ah,  never  may  gallant  loves  know  shame  : 

True-heart  the  true  heart  blesses, 
We  hail  the  Lovers  with  glad  acclaim, 
Whose  white  love  conquers  untouched  of  blame — 
Then  a  double  cheer  for  our  Leader's  name  ! 

And  three  times  three  for  Jessie's  ! 


THE  NEBRASKA  BISON  HUNT. 


IN  the  Camp  of  the  bold  Pathfinder 

The  morning  fires  are  burning, 
And  bearded  men,  knelt  round  them, 

The  beechen  spits  are  turning ; 
A  savory  steam  is  clouding 

The  keen  air  of  the  dawn  ; 
Their  eager  nostrils  snuff  it  in, 
And  white  through  the  shaggy  moustache  grin 
The  expectant  teeth  of  the  Creole  man, 
And  the  wiry,  swart  Canadian, 

Around  the  camp-fires  drawn. 

From  the  far-off  western  mountains 
The  winds  come,  hissing  and  cold, 


THE    NEBRASKA    BISON    HUNT.  JQ 

Though  over  the  eastern  levels  run 
The  fluid  fires  of  a  July  sun, 
Across  the  prairie,  sere  and  dun, 
Flashing  in  purple  and  gold. 

Sun-rayed,  the  bright  Helianthus 

Is  turning  toward  its  God, 
And  its  million  golden  blossoms 

To  the  rising  Splendor  nod. 
The  clumps  of  the  tough  Artemisia, 

With  their  wiry  twigs  intwined, 
Turn  white  like  the  ocean  breakers, 

In  the  ruffling  western  wind, 
And  a  healthful  odor  of  camphor  and  fir, 
Is  loosed  by  the  silvery  leaflets'  stir, 
That  fills  the  air  as  a  censer  of  myrrh 

In  the  gorgeous  fanes  of  Ind  ; 
The  weary  voyageurs  drink  the  balm, 
And  the  breath  they  breathe  is  full  and  calm, 

With  the  vigor  it  leaves  behind. 

Far  off,  in  the  glow  of  the  sunrise, 

In  threads  of  a  hazy  blue, 
The  smoke  of  the  Pawnee  wigwams 


20  THE    NEBRASKA    BISON    HUNT. 

Has  dimmed  their  homeward  view ; 
But  their  hearts  are  with  their  Leader, 

Whom  the  Mountain  Spirits  call 
To  find  the  Path  of  Empire 

Across  their  rocky  wall  ; 
And  their  faces  are  set  westward 

To  the  ever-deepening  wild, 
Where  the  serpent  lurks  in  wood  and  fen, 
Writh  savage  beasts  and  savage  men, 
And  cataracts  thunder  down  the  glen, 
Where  winds  their  path  on  slippery  jags, 
Round  cavernous  pits,  over  toppling  crags, 

And  down  the  rocks  in  ruin  piled. 

Rich  "  humps"  of  the  roasted  bison, 

Before  that  hungry  crew, 
With  cans  of  the  fragrant  "  Java," 

Have  vanished  like  the  dew. 
With  the  first  blush  of  the  dawning, 

The  young  Day's  virgin  glow, 
They  had  loosed  the  picketed  horses, 

And  let  the  oxen  go 
To  graze  by  the  Shallow  River, 

And  drink  of  its  limpid  flow. 


THE    NEBRASKA    BISON    HUNT.  21 

Now  hark,  to  the  voice  of  the  Leadei 

They  joyfully  obey — 
"  My  lads  !  I  have  seen  the  promise 

Of  a  gallant  ride  to-day  ; 
Ho  !  saddle  the  fiery  hunters, 

My  lightning-shod  PROVEAU, 
And  a  brace  for  my  brave  riders, 

We'll  charge  the  buffalo  ! 
Keep  watch  and  ward,  my  trusty  men, 
For  the  steeds  may  break  to  the  herd  agen, 
Or  meet,  anear  some  woody  glen, 

The  Pawnee  Loup's  lasso. 

"  Come  on  !  my  gallant  Maxwell ; 

I  hear  the  sullen  roar 
Of  a  herd  that  darkens  all  the  plain, 
A  murmur  as  of  the  windy  main 

Far  off  on  a  rocky  shore  : 
Come  on  !  my  true  Kit  Carson  ; 

I've  lads  more  brawny  and  tall, 
But  the  crack  of  that  trusty  rifle 

Proclaims  the  victim's  fall. 
We  three  will  ride  together, 

Hurled  on  that  grazing  herd, 


22  THE    NEBRASKA    BISON    HUNT. 

Like  a  triple  bolt  of  thunder 
From  the  talons  of  Jove's  Bird. 

"  Charge  over  the  broad  Nebraska, 
With  scarcely  the  fetlocks  wet ; 
And  slowly  up  against  the  gale, 
That  else  might  whisper  them  the  tale 
Of  a  coming  foe,  we'll  take  the  trail, 
And  spot  the  fairest  yet !" 

Right  over  the  broad  Nebraska, 

With  scarcely  the  fetlocks  wet, 
They  dashed,  and  slowly  up  the  plain, 
With  steeds  impatient  of  the  rein, 
Drew  nigh,  some  vantage-ground  to  gain 
Ere  to  the  hills  the  startled  train 
In  a  roaring  flood-tide  set. 

By  Heaven  !  it  was  a  goodly  view 
That  opened  on  their  sight ! 

As  far  as  eye  could  pierce  the  blue, 

From  all  that  waving  plain,  it  drew 
A  terrible  delight ! 

One  boundless  sea  of  murmuring  life 


THE    NEBEASKA    BISON    HUNT.  23 

Along  the  prairie  lay, 
With  here  and  there  a  whirl  of  strife, 

Of  the  shaggy  bulls  in  fray — 
An  eddy  of  battle,  roaring  loud 
Above  the  hum  of  the  moving  crowd, 

With  the  white  dust  for  its  spray. 

Far  to  the  north  the  dusky  tide 

Rolled  on  the  purple  hills  ; 
And  thronging  down  the  river-side, 
It  seemed  the  river  itself  they  dried, 
As  it  crept,  along  its  channel  wide, 

In  a  thousand  trickling  rills. 

They  paused  but  a  breathless  moment 

Before  that  grand  array, 
When  rang  the  voice  of  the  Leader 

So  proudly  they  obey — 
''  Hurrah  !  the  deep  tide  wavers  ! 

They  have  snuffed  the  coming  foe  : 

o 

Like  billow  on  heaving  billow, 

Their  refluent  surges  flow. 
Far  off  they  have  caught  the  terror, 

And  louder,  and  more  loud, 


24 


THE    NEBEASKA    BISfON    HUNT. 

Swells  up  the  sea-like  murmur, 
As  toward  the  hills  they  crowd. 

Now  pick  your  game,  Kit  Carson  ! 
Yon  huge  dun  cow  is  mine  ; 

Now,  gallant  Maxwell,  pick  your  game  ; 

With  a  ringing  yell,  and  a  rush  like  flame, 
We'll  break  the  roaring  line  !" 

Untouched  by  the  goading  rowels, 

With  only  the  rein  let  go, 
Like  the  plunge  of  a  swooping  eagle 

Flew  fiery-eyed  Proveau. 
Kit  Carson's  snorting  charger 

Rained  down  his  hoofs  like  hail  ; 
But  the  steed  of  gallant  Maxwell 

Blazed  by  like  a  comet's  tail ! 

For  a  moment,  as  an  army 

Charged  fiercely  front  and  flank, 

The  dense  mass  reeled  and  wavered, 
From  surging  rank  to  rank  ; 

In  a  moment,  gulfing  inward, 
They  bared  a  narrow  pass, 

Where,  as  the  bold  pursuers  rushed, 


THE    NEBilASKA    BISON    HUNT.  25 

The  shaggy  brutes,  together  crushed, 

Rolled  bellowing  on  the  grass — 
Brute  over  brute  piled  on  the  plain, 
As  away,  like  a  desert  hurricane, 

Swept  all  the  roaring  mass  ! 
A  rumbling  earthquake  shook  the  ground, 
Where  the  cloudy  path  of  their  multitudes  wound, 
And  the  clash  of  their  horns  was  like  the  sound 
Of  a  battle-field,  when  swords  rebound 

From  bucklers  and  helms  of  brass. 

Upright  for  a  single  moment, 

The  Leader's  figure  proud, 
Was  seen,  with  his  leveled  rifle, 

In  a  dusty  thunder-cloud. 
The  fire  of  his  deadly  rifle 

Rang  down  the  wild  retreat, 
And  the  dun  cow,  fierce  and  shaggy, 

Lay  lifeless  at  his  feet. 
But  away  like  a  hungry  tiger — 

His  nostrils  snorting  flame, 
And  his  eyeballs  fiercely  flashing — 

That  Hunter  charged  the  game. 
The  wild  bulls  turned  to  gore  him, 


26  THE    NEBBASKA    BISON    HUNT. 

With  their  dust  and  anger  blind, 
But  lightly  over  them  with  a  bound, 
He  bore  his  rider,  safe  and  sound, 
Or  eagerly  on,  like  a  swift  bloodhound, 
For  a  better  prey  he  swept  away, 

And  left  them  far  behind. 
Oh,  a  gallant  steed  was  fleet  Proveau, 
Who  knew  his  Rider  as  heroes  know 
The  Demigods  they  meet  below — 

By  a  sympathy  of  mind ! 

At  home  in  the  thickest  perils, 

The  dauntless  Mountaineer, 
With  a  hand  that  never  trembled 

From  the  fiery  flask,  nor  fear, 
Sent  death  to  the  plunging  monsters 

Along  his  wild  career, 
Till,  unaware,  from  either  hand, 
Rushed,  from  the  cloud-enveloped  band, 
A  fierce  twain,  terrible  and  grand, 

Full  on  his  front  and  rear! 
Reeled  the  wild  charger,  vaulting  high, 
With  something  like  a  human  cry 
When  terror  blends  with  agony  ; 


THE    NEBKASKA    BISON    HUNT.          37 

Shunning  the  deadly  thrust, 
Aside  he  plunged  from  either  wound, 
Arid  horse  and  rider,  with  one  wild  bound, 

Went  headlong  to  the  dust ; 
While  dashing  together  as  rock  to  rock, 
The  mad  brutes  met  with  a  stunning  shock, 

And  rolled  in  death  on  the  gory  sod, 

A  double  prize,  by  the  gift  of  God, 
To  the  periled  rider  just. 

Up  rose  the  Guide  from  his  stirrup  freed, 
Up  rose,  with  a  leap,  his  treacherous  steed, 
And  dashed  away,  with  a  frighted  speed, 
Where  the  choking  cloud  and  the  sullen  roar 
Were  all  that  told,  in  a  moment  more, 
His  path,  and  theirs  who  had  gone  before. 

"  By  Heaven  !"  cried  Maxwell,  leaping 
From  his  game  to  his  courser  fleet, 

"  I'll  bring  you  a  steed,  Kit  Carson, 
You  stand  but  ill  on  feet !" 

Away,  away,  like  a  shooting  star, 

He  flashed  and  dashed,  with  a  "  Hip !  hurrah  !" 

Right  after  the  trembling  thunder-jar, 


28  THE    NEBKASKA    BISON    HUNT. 

A  moment  seen,  then  lost,  afar 

In  the  dust-cloud  rolling  black  ; 
And  ere  the  first-drawn  bison's  hide 
In  the  blazing  sun  grew  crisp  and  dried, 
Slowly  over  the  brown  hill-side, 
By  the  glittering  rein  to  his  saddle  tied, 
He  brought  the  fugitive  back. 

In  the  Camp  of  the  bold  Pathfinder 
Was  food  enough  that  day, 

And  the  voyageurs  felt  their  Leader 
A  Power  in  their  perilous  way, 

Where  danger  itself  was  a  pastime, 
And  the  battle  of  Life  a  play  ! 


We  have  called  him  for  our  Leader 

In  the  charge  on  a  fiercer  foe, 
That  forth  to  the  shallow  Nebraska 

Rolls  on,  with  a  darker  flow, 
Than  ever  rolled  the  sea-like  swell 

Of  the  herded  buffalo  ! 
On  the  bounding  pulse  of  a  People's  heart, 


THE    NEBRASKA    BISON    HUNT.  29 

We'll  bear  him  to  his  nobler  part, 

As  on  his  proud  Proveau  ; 
And  the  charging  cry  of  our  host  shall  be 
One  long,  loud  shout,  from  sea  to  sea, 
"  FREE  MEN,  FREMONT  and  VICTORY  ! 

Charge  !  and  God  speed  it  so  !" 


THE    DECISION. 


THE  Explorer's  tents  stood,  dim  by  night, 
Beneath  the  guns  of  Laramie, 

Whose  guarded  walls  of  gleaming  white, 

The  last  defense  of  civil  right, 
Clove  the  rod  sea  of  savagery, 
To  bare  a  pathway  for  the  free. 

Through  thick'ning  perils,  day  by  day, 

Along  the  broad  Nebraska's  side, 
The  hardy  band  had  kept  their  way, 
That  toward  the  gates  of  sunset  lay, 
Where  far  and  wide,  in  hoary  pride, 
High  Heaven  the  Titan  hills  defied. 


THE    DECISION.  3J 

An  atom,  on  the  Prairie's  sea, 

Whose  rocky  shore  no  eye  could  span, 
Where  savage  wolf,  and  Wolf-Pawnee, 
Like  rav'ning  sharks  roved,  fierce  and  free — 
With  loaded  wain,  mule,  horse,  and  man, 
Slow  moved  the  westering  caravan. 

Still  lengthening  out,  a  thousand  miles 
Of  hill  and  rock  and  desert  track, 

To  wife's  caress,  and  infant's  smiles, 

To  vine  arcades,  and  garden  aisles, 
Stretched  far  aback,  behind  the  black 
Night  bastions  of  this  bivouac. 

"  Return  !"  the  home-bound  Hunter  cried, 

His  ranks  in  savage  battle  torn  ; 
"  On  desert  wilds  our  steeds  have  died, 
Our  brothers  fallen  by  our  side, 

Our  Leader,  borne  in  death,  we  mourn  ; 

Back,  ere  your  widows  wail  forlorn  !" 

"  Waugh  !  Long  Knives  !  to  your  lodges  back  ! 
But  once  the  Bell-snake's*  warning  rings  ; 

*  "  Serpent  a  Sonnettes,"  the  Eattlesnake. 


THE    DECISION. 

No  grass  along  your  further  track  ; 

Your  beasts  will  fall,  your  pulses  slack, 
By  dusty  springs,  where  lurks  and  stings 
The  serpent  with  invisible  wings  !" 

The  wily  Indian's  snaky  eye 

Ran  down  the  lines,  with  such  a  smile 
As  bodes  no  good — who  dashing  by, 
Spoke  thus,  and  waited  no  reply  ; 
A  little  while,  and  many  a  mile 
Concealed  that  riddling  Priest  of  guile. 

"  Alas  !"  the  terror-smitten  cried, 

"  For  us  there  will  be  life  no  more  ; 
A  sea  of  peril,  far  and  wide, 
Surrounds  our  band,  on  every  side. 
And  all  before  without  a  shore, 
It  darkens,  red  with  human  gore  !" 

"  Return  !  beloved  of  God  and  man, 
Tempt  not  too  far  a  jealous  Fate  !" 

In  sooth  the  very  Braves  began 

To  feel  that  timid  flutter  fan 

Their  hearts,  with  great  Designs  elate, 
To  thoughts  that  owned  them  desperate. 


THE    DECISION.  33 

Not  so  the  Leader !  calm  and  stern, 
And  star-like  in  his  deep  blue  eye, 
Fixed  Resolution  seemed  to  burn, 
Where  even  the  weakest  heart  might  learn 
A  courage  high,  that  dared  to  die 
For  Duty,  but  would  never  fly. 

"  Return  who  will  return,  I  go !" 

He  said,  and  Westward  tossed  his  hand. 

"  No  limbs  that  quake  before  a  foe, 

No  timid  heart  of  forest  doe, 

Shall  shame  the  Band  that  opes  the  grand 
Rock  portals  of  this  Western  Land  ! 

"  Return  who  will  return  !  but  you 

Who  march  with  me,  for  life  or  death, 
Strike  tent  and  harness  !  ere  the  dew 
Quit  yonder  blooms  of  red  and  blue." 
Light  moment  hath  a  little  breath, 
Against  a  Hero's  heart  and  faith  ! 

They  shout !  they  leap  !  no  time  to  sit, 

No  thought  to  turn  again,  nor  stop  ; 
Down  fall  the  tents  like  birds  alit, 


34  THE    DECISION. 

And  steeds  are  champing  at  the  bit ; 
One  parting  sup,  the  "  stirrup-cup," 
Then  to  the  river,  on,  and  up  ! 

"  Hold,  Brothers  !  lo,  the  speaking  Leaf." 
Arid  round  the  Leader  of  our  band 

Rushed  many  a  tall  arid  stalwart  chief, 

With  greeting  thus  abrupt  and  brief, 

And  outstretched  hand,  which  meant  command, 
Though  tempered  with  their  smiling  bland. 

Adorned  with  gaudy  paint  and  plumes, 

And  arrows  of  the  Porcupine, 
Their  garments,  rank  with  musky  fumes, 
Had  taxed  no  palpitating  looms — 

Yet  tall  and  fine,  they  seemed  divine 

As  swar  -  v  o-ods  of  Woden's  line. 

Chief  ol  the  chiefs,  in  silence  sat 

BREAKER-OF-ARROWS,  stout  and  grim, 
BLACK-NIGHT  thick  browed,  and  OTTER-HAT 
The  vain,  and  BULL'S-TAIL,  plumed  with  that, 
In  sooth,  to  him,  as  fair  and  trim 
As  "  Horsetails"  to  the  Musselim  ! 


THE    DECISION.  35 

"  Return,"  the  White  Leaf  said,  "  return  ! 
These  Chiefs  your  onward  march  forbid. 
Their  Braves  have  gone  to  scalp  and  burn, 
And  none  may  'scape  their  vengeance  stern  : 
As  well  the  kid  might  hope  to  thrid 
The  lair-paths  where  the  wolves  are  hid." 

"  Wot  God,"  a  hoary  Sachem  said, 

"  We  love  you  well,  and  are  right  glad 
To  greet  you,  but  upon  your  head 
May  fall  the  blood  your  kinsmen  shed  ; 
The  time  is  bad,  our  warriors,  mad, 
Will  bide  no  check,  till  blood  be  had. 

"  Go  to  our  father's  house  in  peace, 
And  tell  him  we  are  poor  and  bare — 

That  in  good  gifts  this  hate  will  cease, 

For  he  is  rich  in  all  increase, 

And  in  his  care  our  tribes  shall  fare, 
As  fits  the  sire  whose  sons  we  are." 

So  spake  the  Chief  in  wiles  expert, 

And  thus  our  dauntless  Heart  replied  : 
"  Small  sway  your  reverend  lips  assert, 


X 

36  THE    DECISION. 

If  whom  you  love  your  own  dare  hurt ! 
We  ask  a  guide,  and  are  denied  ; 
What  love  is  that — too  weak  to  ride  ! 

"  We  will  not  hear  your  double  tongue  ; 

Ye  are  our  father's  sons  no  more  ; 
We  heard  your  evil  fame,  among 
The  dove-cotes,  by  the  swallows  sung  ; 

And  now  with  gore,  it  darkens  o'er 

Our  vision,  redder  than  before. 

"  Our  youths  are  tutored  to  obey  ; 

We  hear  the  words  our  Old  Men  speak  ; 

They  bade  us  track  descending  Day 

Across  the  mountain's  rocky  way, 
His  bed  to  seek — and  you,  too  weak 
To  ride  or  rule,  what  boots  your  check  1 

"  We've  thrown  our  bodies  to  the  gales, 
And  we  will  not  turn  back,  nor  swerve  ! 

And  many  a  lodge  will  ring  with  wails, 

And  many  a  youth  sleep  on  their  trails, 
If  once  they  nerve  our  hands,  to  serve 
The  vengeance  evil  deeds  deserve. 


THE    DECISION.  37 

"  If  fall  we  must,  as  fall  we  may, 

Your  grief  will  join  the  loud  '  Alas !' 

Our  father's  wrath,  in  one  red  day, 

Will  sweep  your  villages  away, 

A  smoking  mass,  like  prairie  grass, 
When  the  swift  fires  of  autumn  pass  !" 

He  spoke,  and  down  the  ready  line 

A  cheer  of  answering  courage  ran. 
The  faintest  heart's-blood  flashed  like  wine, 
As  the  waved  hand's  advancing  sign 
Led  off  the  van — and,  horse  and  man, 
On  moved  the  westering  caravan. 

The  gloomy  Chiefs,  with  silent  awe, 
And  hearts  that  inly  cheered  the  Brave, 

His  dauntless  mien  and  action  saw, 

And  felt  his  fiery  soul  as  law  : 

Ere  day's  spent  wave  its  shores  could  lave, 
Sped  to  his  camp  the  Guide  they  gave  ! 


Thus  he  unlocked  the  Mountain  Gate  ; 
And  the  proud  trophy  of  Success 


38  THE    DECISION. 

Wrung  from  the  niggard  hand  of  Fate, 
Till  jealous  nations  named  him  Great ; 
And  realms  no  less,  shall  rise,  to  bless 
His  memory,  in  the  wilderness  ! 


THE    CHOICE. 


HEAVEN'S  horologe  points  forward  on  its  way, 
To-morrow's  sunrise  brings  not  back  to-day. 
The  hour  once  struck  shall  never  strike  agen, 
For  laggard  nations  nor  the  souls  of  men. 

Once  in  a  life,  it-may  be  once  alone, 
Comes  the  stern  fiat,  "  Do,  or  be  undone  !" 
The  hour,  the  moment,  when  a  single  word 
Will  strike  the  doom-bell,  once  forever  heard 
That  rings  a  Hero  to  his  golden  crown, 
Or  to  oblivion  tolls  the  Dastard  down. 


4Q  THE    (JHOICE. 

Whatever  sod  his  after  steps  may  beat, 
They  tread  the  pathway  of  that  hour's  defeat, 
Or,  through  the  windings  of  unfathomed  time, 
To  the  full  measure  of  its  triumph  climb. 

No  seeming  fortune's  momentary  smile, 

That  crowns  his  brow  with  sunshine  for  a  while, 

Though  giddy  fools  rush  in  with  joys  elate 

To  catch  the  golden  droppings  of  his  fate, 

Shall  ripen  laurels  at  a  glorious  goal, 

For  him  once  branded  "  Craven,"  in  his  soul. 

No  seeming  failure's  supercilious  frown, 
That  dims  the  daystar  of  his  first  renown, 
Till  his  dark  path  is  veiled  in  utter  gloom, 
Where  boding  ravens  croak  the  words  of  doom- 
While  hearts  of  fear,  and  base-born  parasites, 
Fly  from  the  dark,  and  flit  round  lower  lights- 
Can  stain  the  splendors  of  his  aureole, 
Once  written  "  Hero"  on  his  living  soul. 

Since  the  bright  stars  that  chronicle  our  fates 
Only  right  forward  swing  their  golden  gates, 
And  souls,  once  gone  on  their  returnless  track, 
What  good  they  left,  forevermore  shall  lack— 


THE    CHOICE.  4| 

With  this  great  hope,  the  nobler  lives  they  live 
Thenceforth,  may  win  some  bliss  compensative — 
Since  erring  nations,  in  an  evil  way 
Can  only  speed  to  premature  decay, 
And  to-day's  guerdon  must  be  won  to-day — 
Old  graves  are  vocal,  and  the  whirlpool-rocks 
Wreck-beaconed  murmur  o'er  their  thunder-shocks, 
The  solemn  voices  of  the  immortal  dead, 
And  the  wild  moan  of  wasted  lives,  ill-sped, 
Swell  the  deep  warning  of  the  living  Seer, 
Choose  well  to-day  your  unrevoked  career  ! 

Now  is  the  Crisis  ;  the  dead  Past  is  gone, 
And  the  swift  Present  seals  her  page  anon  ; 
This  moment's  action  plants  the  good  or  ill 
That,  ages  hence,  will  flourish  greenly  still. 

And  if  to-day  we  reap  the  bitter  tares 

Our  fathers  sowed,  self-willed  or  unawares, 

With  more  hot  earnest  speaks  the  warning  voice 

To  snatch  this  moment's  unreturning  choice, 

To  strike  the  furrow  by  the  rigid  line 

Of  human  rights,  which  are  indeed  "  divine," 

And  fling  broad-handed,  over  all  the  plain, 


42  THE    CHOICE. 

The  golden  seeds  of  truth  and  right  again — 

Freedom  for  all — the  inviolable  cot, 

With  its  free  fields,  a  consecrated  spot, 

And  a  broad  charter  for  excursive  thought 

To  seek  new  truth,  and  speak  the  truth  she  sought. 

So  the  great  Future  may  not  learn  to  curse 

A  niggard  toil  that  cultured  bad  to  worse  ; 

But  bless  the  hands  that  to  her  children  gave 

A  teeming  glebe  unblighted  by  a  slave, 

And  the  fair  boon  of  souls  who  dare  to  be 

What  God  would  have  them,  fearless,  true,  and  free. 


THE    SOUTH    PASS. 


'Tis  but  the  opening  step  that  costs, 

For  labor,  love,  or  laurel  ; 
With  corn  that  dared  the  vernal  frosts 

The  autumnal  never  quarrel. 
The  Rubicon  of  Laramie, 

Passed  bravely  by  the  ranger, 
None  doubted  then  his  foot  to  see 

Victorious  over  danger. 

And,  now  the  mighty  goal  is  won — 
That  Portal  of  the  Mountains, 

Where  forth  to  either  ocean  run 
The  floods  of  rival  fountains — 


44  THE  SOUTH  PASS. 

No  rugged  rocks'  gigantic  mass, 

No  fathomless  abysses, 
Confound  the  vasty  mountain-pass, 

With  horrent  precipices. 

By  endless  slopes  of  climbing  plain, 

O'er-starred  with  blooming  Asters, 
The  foot,  unconscious  of  its  strain, 

The  towering  summit  masters  : 
Ascent  as  easy  to  subdue, 

When  on  the  way  the  will  is, 
As  up  your  glorious  Avenue, 

The  Capitolian  Hill  is  ! 

The  Gallant  who  has  climbed  ftiat  steep, 

And  many  a  summit  harder, 
From  Jessie-mine-bowered  Lover's-Leap, 

To  snowy-gulfed  Nevada, 
May  lightly  reach  this  spot  of  earth, 

Where  gleams  Ambition's  tower — 
Just  stepping,  from  the  top  of  Worth, 

Down  on  the  top  of  Power. 

Through  perils  from  the  savage  foe, 
And  kindly  hearts  unstable, 


THE    SOUTH    PASS.  45 

From  dastard  souls  who  would  not  go, 

And  weak  who  were  unable, 
We've  reached  the  SOUTHERN  PASS,  at  last, 

Star-flowered  with  better  promise, 
And  if  we  will,  we'll  soon  have  passed, 

Where  Slavery's  floods  roll  from  us  ! 

Up  then,  ye  dauntless  freemen,  on  ! 

Track  close  your  dauntless  Master  ; 
We've  crossed  the  fateful  Rubicon, 

To  victory  or  disaster. 
This  day  the  nation's  noblest  hopes 

Hang  trembling  in  the  balance, 
Up  !  charge  the  level  Pass,  that  opes 

The  broad  Free  West,  my  Gallants  ! 

While  now  the  finger  of  Events 

Though  tremulous,  like  the  needle, 
Points  only  North,  out  from  your  tents, 

In  squadrons  millipedal  ! 
And  march  for  Freedom's  Mountain-door, 

Where  Slavery's  flood  rolls  from  us, 
And  living  fountains  flash,  that  pour 

Down  all  our  Land  of  Promise. 


46  THE    SOUTH    PASS. 

Thus  only  can  we  reach  that  hight 

Which  towers  aloft  supremely, 
Where  truth  is  law,  and  right  is  might, 

Far  seen  before  us,  dimly. 
Then  on  !   and  He  who  bore  his  flag 

Across  the  Mountain's  Portal, 
Will  bear  up  ours,  as  o'er  his  crag, 

To  Freedom's  Peak  immortal. 


FREMONT    PEAK. 


THE    HIGHEST   POINT    Or   THE    ROCKY    MOUNTAINS. 


ALOFT  in  naked  grandeur  towered 

The  vast  Cathedral  of  the  Hills, 
High  peaks  that  would  have  quelled  the  coward 

To  look  upon  their  pinnacles. 
Sheer  over  all,  with  awful  front, 

Not  yet  baptized  in  brave  sweat-drops 
Of  its  High  Priest,  the  "  Peak  Fremont" 

Looked  down  on  all  the  mountain-tops. 

Far  up,  its  skeleton  white  hand, 

In  glitter  of  eternal  snow, 
Caught  the  young  Morning's  flaring  brand, 

And  flung  it  to  the  hills  below. 


48  FREMONT    PEAK. 

In  the  keen  quivering  of  the  light, 
Might  seem  its  rigid  arm  to  wave, 

Repellant  in  the  weak  heart's  sight, 

But  beckoning  up  the  strong  and  brave. 

Ten  thousand  years  of  flood  and  fire, 

Of  earthquake  and  of  hurricane, 
That  fleshless  Arm,  no  time  could  tire, 

Had  beckoned  for  its  Man  in  vain. 
Sometimes  the  Indian's  fiery  eye 

Far  off,  its  morning  signal  saw, 
But  strange,  weird  voices  in  the  sky, 

Low  muttering,  turned  him  back  in  awe ! 

The  Builders  of  the  mighty  Mounds, 

Who  laid  those  fingers  on  the  lips 
Of  their  Land's  Secret,  heard  the  sounds, 

And  saw  that  towering  fiend  eclipse 
The  downward  Sun,  their  glorious  God, 

Ages  before — and  flying  far, 
Piled  for  his  grave  the  wintry  sod, 

And  died  beneath  their  fatal  star. 

Ten  thousand  years  of  mellowing  change, 
Of  rain,  and  sun,  and  greening  grass, 


FREMONT    PEAK. 

Of  eagle-flight,  and  wild  beast's  range, 
That  towering  Peak  had  seen  to  pass  ; 

But  waved  its  fleshless  arm  in  vain, 
For  ages,  since  the  world  began  ; 

Till  now,  in  Freedom's  latest  reign, 

The  unwearying  Call  has  found  its  Man ! 

Aloft  with  Freedom's  meteor  flag — 

In  hands  like  his  redeemed  from  shame — 
He  scales  the  mountain's  dizzying  crag, 

Clinging  and  climbing  like  a  flame  ! 
Right  up  !  a  thousand  feet  below, 

The  deep  lake  glitters  like  a  star, 
Up  !  through  the  everlasting  snow, 

Beyond  the  storm-line's  icy  scar. 

Up  !  where  the  eagle  scarce  could  stand  ! 

Till  his  unerring  foot  has  trod 
The  loftiest  cliff  that  heaves  its  hand 

Between  its  mountain-throne  and  God. 
Beneath  his  foot  the  thin  spire  quakes, 

Like  a  tall  cedar  in  the  blast ! 
'Tis  the  old  Mountain's  hand  that  shakes 

The  welcome  Hero's  hand  at  last ! 


49 


50  FEEMONT    PEAK. 

Sheer  down,  a  hundred  fathoms  dread, 

On  the  broad  shoulders  of  the  Cliff, 
He  sees  the  royal  ermine  spread, 

Like  some  proud  Sultan's,  jewel-stiff ; 
And  round  their  awful  Monarch's  knees, 

The  mountain  Peers,  with  all  their  woods, 
And  far,  on  either  hand,  he  sees 

The  Cradle  of  the  mighty  Floods. 

Like  a  wild  meteor  in  the  sky, 

Outgleams  the  banner  of  his  land, 
As  with  a  loud,  exulting  cry, 

He  gives  it  to  that  floshless  Hand ! 
A  symbol  on  the  eternal  hills, 

That  all  below  them  should  be  free, 
As  that  free-mountain  shout,  that  thrills 

Down  all  the  slopes  to  either  sea  ! 


TO  "BROMUS,"   ON  FREMONT'S  PEAK 

ALOFT    13,570    FEET. 


YELLOW-COATED  little  Hero ! 
Bold  explorer  of  the  hills ! 
Do  you  look  for  daffodils, 
Lily-blooms,  and  purple  flags — 
With  the  mercury  at  zero — 
On  these  barren,  icy  crags  ? 

What  has  sent  you,  lonely  Rover, 
Far  away  from  meadow  slopes, 
Columbine  and  heliotropes  ? 


52  TO    "BROMUS." 

Reveler  in  sunny  light, 
And  the  sunny  banks  of  clover, 
Why  your  wild  and  weary  flight  ? 

Is  it  possible  Ambition 

Harbors  in  your  little  soul, 
Eager  for  the  highest  goal — 
Doing  what  no  other  can  ? 
Pretty,  miniature  edition 

Of  the  sateless  heart  of  man ! 

"  Humble  ?"  so  I  hear  you  cited  ; 
But,  between  yourself  and  me, 
Boy  !  if  yoiCre  a  humble-bee 
I  have  not  the  wit  to  guess 
Where  a  proud  one  would  have  'lighted, 
In  our  little  wilderness  ! 

But  I  may  divine  what  meaneth 
This  my  witty  fellow  speaks, 
Up  among  the  chilly  peaks  ; 
That  a  steady,  sunward  flight, 
Though  it  may  not  split  the  zenith, 
Finds  a  very  noble  hight ; 


TO    '"BlJOMUS." 

That  the  Eagle  and  the  Vulture 
Are  not  all  who  mount  the  sky 
So  "  unutterably  high  ;" 
But  that  any  little  chap 
May,  if  true  to  pith  and  culture, 
Put  that  feather  in  his  cap  ! 


53 


THE  CROSS  ON  ROCK  INDEPENDENCE, 


BEST  Hero  is  best  Man  in  every  sphere  ; 

The  noblest  soul  is  always  meek  and  just  ; 
Its  pride,  that  tramples  upon  human  fear, 

And  treads  down  peril  as  the  common  dust, 

Is  the  calm  nursling  of  a  lowly  Trust  ; 
For  he  whose  faithful  spirit  walks  with  God, 

Soars  above  terror  and  unworthy  lust, 
And  will  not  wield,  nor  suffer,  the  base  rod 
Of  tyrant  power  that  makes  Humanity  a  clod. 

No  pompous  Braggart's  egoistic  "  I," 

In  his  small  worth  and  over-swollen  conceit ; 
No  blatant  ruffian,  who  can  pitch  more  high 


CROSS     ON     EOCK     INDEPENDENCE.         55 

His  threatful  clamor  than  the  valorous  beat 

Of  his  fierce  heart ;  nor  he  whose  fears  defeat 
More  than  injustice  or  an  evil  deed, 

May  dare  to  front  the  Future's  judgment-seat 
And  claim  the  name  of  Hero  for  his  meed  : 
The  paths  of  inward  peace  to  outward  grandeur 

lead. 

High  natures  are  allegiant  to  a  Higher, 

And  looking  upward  teaches  them  to  climb. 

The  soul  that  has  no  God,  nor  altar-fire, 
Must  grovel  coldly  in  the  barren  slime 
Of  selfish  pride,  or  at  the  flames  of  crime 

Warm  the  thick  blood  to  false  enthusiasm  ; 
But  Faith  makes  even  our  feebleness  sublime, 

And,  bridging  Death, leaps  every  narrower  chasm, 
And  turns  to  new  Life's  flight  the  last  convulsive 
spasm  ! 

The  Heroes  'balmed  in  everlasting  song 

By  the  great  Past,  who  drew  from  fearful  odds 

New  strength,  for  sterner  conflict  with  the  wrong, 
Fought  for  their  Country  and  their  Household 
Gods; 


56         CEOSS     ON     BOOK     INDEPENDENCE. 

The  laurel,  grown  on  all  their  battle  sods, 
Hung  round  the  Altar  with  their  dinted  arms  ; 

And  he  who  sang  in  golden  periods, 
"  Arms   and  the  Man,"  with  "pious"  crowned 

the  charms 
Of  his  heroic  worth  in  council  and  alarms. 

Nor  shall  this  age,  whose  better  faith  demands 
More  strict  devotion,  lack  heroic  men 

Who  will  not  blush  to  join  victorious  hands 
In  humble  adoration,  even  then, 
When  hot  blood  urges  to  the  charge  agen  ! 

So  have  we  seen  our  laureled  WASHINGTON, 
Besieging  Heaven  in  some  secluded  glen, 

On  bended  knees ;  then,  armed  with  fire,  anon 
Sweep  the  red  field  of  War,  till  victory  was  won  ! 

So  have  we  seen,  in  years  allied  to  this, 

The  bold  PATHFINDER  bowing  to  the  Cross  ; 

And  heard  Detraction's  atheistic  hiss 

Greet  the  great  Symbol  of  our  Gain  and  Loss, 
With  foul  lips'  curl,  and  low  head's  scornful 
toss, 

As  Envy  maddened  at  our  Hero's  crown. 


CEOS8     ON    KOCK     INDEPENDENCE.         57 

Ah,  gallant  Soul !  a  thousand  years  may  moss 
The  sign  thou  carvedst  in  thy  young  renown, 
But  ere  that  fair  fame  fail,  the  Rock  shall  crumble 
down. 

Far  in  the  savage  wilds  that  granite  block, 

From  the  deep  bowels  of  the  mountain  hurled, 
Seems,  in  the  grandeur  of  its  barren  rock, 
The  corner-stone  of  some  unfinished  world, 
Huge  Mausoleum,  with  Fame's  scroll  unfurled 
Upon  its  surface,  or  an  altar  grand, 

With  thunder-clouds   for  smoke  of  incense, 

curled 

Above  its  awful  front,  where,  graven,  stand 
The  names   of  brave,   great,   good,   from  many  a 
rival  land. 

While  power,  and  pride,  and  bounding  life  were 

theirs, 

They  made  that  Rock  their  living  Monument ; 
And  for  the  strength  with  which,  alone,  it  dares 
The  storms  of  ages,  moveless  and  unrent, 
Baptized  it  unto  Freedom  ;  arid  so  blent 
Its  name  with  this  young  Empire  of  the  West, 
3* 


58         CEOSS     ON     ROCK    INDEPENDENCE. 

Whose  "  Independence,"  like  that  Rock,  has 

sent 

Its  challenge  to  the  thunder  !   and,  confest, 
The  World's  great  exiles  set  their  names  upon  its 
breast. 

Here  the  young  Hero  of  the  mountain  peaks, 
Who  could  have  shamed  the  chamois  on  his 

Alp, 

When,  like  a  sunrise,  he  had  hung  the  streaks 
Of  our  starred  Banner  on  the  naked  scalp 
Of  pinnacled  rocks  supreme — who  knew  the 

help 
God  lends  the  daring,  in  memorial  love 

Graved   his  Redeemer's  Cross.     The    gaunt 

wolf's  whelp 

May  sn:;il  below  it,  but  heaven  smiles  above  ; 
True  hearts  of  every  name,  and  every  creed,  ap 
prove. 

If  it  were  noble,  and  of  worthy  fame, 
To  bear  aloft  his  country's  eagle  flag 

Beyond  the  eagle's  ken,  and  in  her  name 
Unfurl  it  there,  upon  the  topmost  crag 


CROSS     ON     EOCK     INDEPENDENCE.         59 

Of  this  New  World,  poised  on  a  splintered  jag 
Where  never  yet  the  boldest  foot  had  trod, 

Shall  bigot  Envy's  soul-polluted  hag 
Cast  down  his  laurels  to  the  trampled  sod, 
For  that  he  laid  them  all  upon  the  shrine  of  God  ? 

Ah,  no  !  the  symbol  of  the  bannered  stars, 

Flung  out  far  up  the  starry  deeps  of  blue, 
Is  freedom  for  the  arms  that  break  the  bars 

Of  olden  Empire,  to  create  the  new  ; 

The  holier  symbol  of  the  Cross  he  drew 
On  the  rock  basis  of  the  eternal  hills, 

Is  freedom  for  the  soul,  who  dares  be  true 
In  the  long  martyrdom  of  mortal  ills, 
And  many  a  noble  heart  that  sign  with  rapture  fills  ! 


THE    CANON. 


i. 

AT  the  roots  of  the  mountains — 
The  wreck  of  a  world — 

Where  the  congregate  waters 

Of  myriad  fountains 
Together  are  hurled — 

The  precipice  totters 
With  ruinous  weight, 

Leaning  over  the  river 

That  darts  with  a  shiver, 
As  of  a  lashed  hound, 

Now,  headlong,  or  never, 
To  plunge  with  a  bound 
Through  that  perilous  gate  ! 


THE     UAJNUiS.  Ql 

From  meadows  that  offer 

Their  sunniest  nooks 
To  the  purple  amorpha, 
And  flowers  without  number, 

Gold,  azure,  arid  red, 
Multitudinous  brooks 

In  the  low  river-bed, 
Like  glittering  arrows 

Flown  home  to  their  quiver, 

Unite  in  a  river, 
One  moment  to  slumber, 
Ere  hurled  to  the  narrows 

It  rushes  in  dread, 
With  rocks  to  encumber 

Its  turbulent  flow, 
Arid  rocks  overhead, 

Bowing  fearfully  low. 

Shot  down  from  its  level, 

Clear,  sunny,  and  large, 
Its  mirror-like  bevel 

Leans  smooth  to  the  rock, 
Though  swift  as  the  lightning 

It  shoots  to  its  targe, 


62  THECASON. 

Till,  shattered  and  whitening, 
'Tis  crushed  by  the  shock 
Of  its  thunderous  charge. 

Hemmed  in  by  the  ledges, 
How  fiercely  it  wedges 

Its  terrible  path 
To  the  jaws  of  that  ruin, 
Where,  ages  on  ages, 

It  gnawed  as  it  gnaws, 
And  raged  as  it  rages, 
Incessantly  hewing 

A  way  for  its  wrath, 

In  those  terrible  jaws. 

'Tis  the  shallow  Nebraska, 
The  limpid  Nebraska, 
Now  goaded  to  frenzy, 

Or  drunk  with  the  glee 
Of  some  Sibylline  fancy 

Of  all  it  may  be. 
Shot  down  from  its  level 

Of  lifeful  repose, 
A  jubilant  masquer 


THE 

In  carnival  madness, 
And  frenzy  of  gladness, 

In  roaring  and  revel, 
The  foaming  Nebraska — 
The  shouting  Nebraska, 

Exultingly  goes  ! 

Ever  deeper  and  deeper, 
As  steeper  and  steeper 

The  gulfs  of  their  torment 
Descend  like  a  leaper, 

The  waters  are  piled 

In  an  eddying  mass  ; 
And  the  foam  of  their  ferment 

Ascends  in  the  pass, 
As  white,  o'er  the  storm-rent 
Atlantic,  the  corm'rant 

Goes  driftingly  wild. 

With  a  half-timid  shiver 
The  goat  of  the  ledges 
Peers  over  their  edges, 

And  leaps  the  loud  river  ; 
Far  up  in  the  blue, 


63 


64  TnE    CANON. 

Flitting  by  in  the  sky 
Like  a  lark  to  the  view, 

Or  an  animate  mote— 
The  jaws  of  that  inner 
Gulf's  watery  Gehenna 

Yawn  upward  so  high 

O'er  its  cavernous  throat. 

Adown  the  abysses 

The  swift  river  pours  ; 
It  rustles  and  hisses, 

It  thunders  and  roars. 
With  changing  and  ranging, 

Now  hither,  now  thither — 
Momently  sundered 

And  tumbled  together 
Torn  by  a  hundred 

Impetuous  wills, 
Baffled  and  frantic, 
Amid  the  gigantic 

Debris  of  the  hills — 
Rushing  and  winding  ; 

Plunging  in  cataracts, 
Leaping  in  fountains — 


THE    CAN  ON.  65 

So  the  mad  water  acts, 
Rending  and  finding 

A  path  through  the  mountains. 

'Twas  thus  the  Nebraska, 
The  fettered  Nebraska, 

Yet  young  from  the  lap 
Of  its  Titaness  Mother — 

Untortured  to  grind 
In  the  mill  of  a  Tasker 
As  slave  to  another — 

Nor  leaving  the  sap 
Of  its  vigor  behind 

In  the  roseate  charms 

Of  the  Prairie's  arms — 
Was  mighty  to  snap 

Its  mountainous  bands, 

And  out,  with  a  shout, 
Leap,  wild  as  the  clap 

Of  the  Thunderer's  hands  ! 

The  dark,  roaring  gap, 
With  its  precipice  cap, 

Where  the  river-floods  fell 


66 


THE    CAtfON. 

In  their  mutinous  wrath, 
Was  the  Canon's  Gehenna — 

Its  watery  hell ! 
The  smoke  of  whose  torment, 

A  nebulous  banner — 
Involved,  like  a  cerement, 

The  ruinous  dell 
That  plowed  its  abysses 

Along  in  the  path 
Of  a  braver  Ulysses 

Than  old  story  hath — 
The  eagle-like  soarer, 
Bold  Chief  and  Explorer, 

Whose  foot  trod  as  well 
Over  skied  precipices, 

As  on  the  green  math 
With  his  bounding  Signora. 


RUNNING    THE    CAS  ON.  57 

II. 
RUNNING    THE     CANON. 

The  Hero,  undaunted, 

Turned  not  on  his  track  ; 
A  duty  before  him, 
And  way  peril-haunted, 
Far  rather  would  spur  him, 
Than  hold  a  rein  o'er  him. 

Save  guidingly  slack. 
The  hearts  of  his  chosen, 
By  terror  unfrozen, 
Exultirigly  panted 

To  ride  on  the  back 
Of  that  wild  foaming  charger, 

Right  down  through  the  roar 
Of  the  turbulent  river — 
By  keel  of  the  voyager 

Ne'er  cloven  before — 
By  bold  Rider  never, 
In  gallant  endeavor, 

So  scourged  with  the  oar. 


68  RUNNING    THE    CANON. 

They  launched  on  a  bubble  ! 

A  spacious,  tenacious, 
Exotical  bubble — 

A  thread  at  the  helm 

Of  that  tenuous  film — 
That  spun  in  that  trouble 

Of  weltering  water, 
As  spins,  for  a  little, 

A  brain-dizzied  otter 
Ill-struck  by  the  hunter — 
Then,  borne  to  the  middle, 
And  finding  her  center, 

She  darted  !  she  flew  ! 

With  her  dexterous  crew, 
Just  skimming  the  wave 

As  a  rapid  sea-mew, 
And  shunning  her  grave 

In  the  hollows  beneath, 
Where  the  splintering  jags 

Would  have  cloven  her  through, 
With  their  terrible  teeth  ! 

The  precipitous  crags, 
In  the  glimmering  blue, 


EUNNING    THE    CAftON. 

Flew  hurriedly  back, 
Like  the  thunderous  rack 

That  the  hurricanes  brew  ! 
And  sunlight  and  shadow — 
As  over  the  meadow 

When  Taurus  is  nigh — 
With  smiling  and  weeping 
Unstable  and  fickle — 

Went  troopingly  by. 

But  more  of  terrific 

And  ruinous  power 
Rode,  deaf'ningly  sweeping, 

Along  with  that  shower, 
As  a  cold,  clammy  trickle 
Dropped  down  from  petrific 

Rock-cumuli  o'er  them ! 
While  round  them,  and  under, 

Above,  and  before  them, 
One  Maelstrom  of  thunder 

Involved  them,  and  bore  them  ; 
With  rapid  reef-whit'ning, 

That  flashed,  intermitting, 


70  RUNNING    THE 

The  sun-splendors  flitting, 
Shot  by  for  their  lightning  ! 

With  singing  and  shouting 

Unheard  in  the  roar, 
Nor  fearing  nor  doubting 

The  perils  before, 
They  flew  through  the  hollow 

Reverberant  caves, 
As  a  tiny  cliff-swallow 

Alone  with  the  waves. 

From  the  bow  of  the  falls 

Like  an  arrow  they  leapt, 
And  around  in  the  sling 

Of  the  vortices  swept. 
Were  hurled  to  the  walls, 

With  a  perilous  fling, 
Like  the  pebble  that  leveled 

The  Anakim  king ; 
But  gracefully  shunning 

The  shock,  in  a  breath, 
They  flew  where  the  stunning, 


RUNNING    THE    CANON. 

White  cataracts  reveled  ; 
Exultingly  running 

Their  gauntlet  of  death  ! 

So  daring  and  well, 
With  his  chosen  companions, 
Our  braver  Ulysses 
Went  down  the  abysses 
The  Phlegethon-flood 

Of  that  watery  hell  ; 
Went  down  through  the  canon's 

Gehenna  of  waves, 
Till  they  stood  where  the  blood 

Of  immaculate  Braves 
Had  thrilled  with  a  shiver 
To  see  the  mad  river, 

With  a  death-gurgled  note 
Sucked  down  through  the  teeth 
Of  the  black  jaws  beneath, 

To  the  fathomless  throat 
Of  impassable  caves. 

O  !  the  wilds  and  abysms, 
Rough  danger  and  toil, 


72  KUNNING    THE 

Are  the  nurture  and  soil 
Of  sublime  Heroisms  ! 
And  better  than  war  is, 

And  better  than  peace, 
Are  the  perilous  forays 

'Gainst  desert  and  river, 

And  stern  wilderness  ; 
They  open  the  door-ways 

Of  future  endeavor, 
And  challenge  the  Darkness, 
Close-lipped  in  its  starkness, 

To  stand  and  deliver  ! 


THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK. 


"  'TWAS  nobly  done  !"     Aye,  nobly  done ! 

And  worthy  of  the  old  renown 
Of  Plataea  and  of  Marathon — 

To  fling  the  daring  gauntlet  down, 
To  the  false  leader  of  a  band 

By  lying  panders  stung  too  well 
To  fierce  resentments,  in  a  land 

As  fair  as  heaven  and  false  as  hell. 

He  came  in  peace,  for  worthy  ends, 
To  give  the  secrets  of  that  clime 

To  star-eyed  Science,  still  who  lends 
The  soul  new  wings  for  flights  sublime  ; 

4 


74 


THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK. 

His  weapons  were  that  magic  reed* 

Which  plucks  the  planets  from  the  sky, 

The  prisoned  Arielf  who  leads 

The  voyager  where  no  path  is  nigh ; 

The  wizard's  balance,^  fine  and  thin, 

That  weighs  the  unfathomable  air, 
And  that  pale  child§  of  Hermes'  kin, 

Whose  pulses  the  long  throbs  declare 
Of  the  great  fire-heart  of  the  world  ; 

With  more  of  strange  and  weird  design, 
Whereby  the  mysteries  are  unfurled 

That  sleep,  thin-veiled,  in  nature's  shrine. 

Around  him,  hardy  as  the  hills, 

His  triple  score  of  gallant  men, 
Through  fire  and  frost  and  countless  ills, 

In  savage  haunt,  or  lonely  glen, 
With  toil,  and  chase,  and  rifle-shot, 

Kept  famine  and  fierce  foes  at  bay  ; 
Ha!  toy  with  hungry  wolves,  but  not 

Provoke  the  wrath  of  such  as  they  ! 

*  Telescope,     t  Compass.      %  Barometer.     §  Thermometer. 


THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK.  75 

Through  every  heart,  their  Leader's  heart 

Beat  like  a  pulse  of  molten  steel ; 
Not  sooner  would  their  proud  steeds  dart 

From  shaken  rein  arid  roweled  heel, 
Than  these,  on  Peril's  wildest  charge, 

At  his  low  word,  or  silent  sign  ; 
His  brain  superb,  and  spirit  large, 

Shone  out  confest,  in  storm  and  shine. 

He  came  in  peace,  with  welcome  given, 

To  read  the  wonders  of  that  land, 
Her  flowers  and  floods,  and  chasms  riven 

Through  bald  sierras,  wild  and  grand. 
But  Treachery,  choking  back  her  words, 

Roused  the  red  Indian's  eyeless  wrath, 
And  arming  all  her  mongrel  hordes, 

Shook  chains  and  death  across  his  path  f 

Ah,  little  did  the  traitor  chief 

Who  stirred  that  Mountain  Spirit,  deem 
That,  ere  the  lengthening  days  grew  brief, 

'T  would  haunt  him  like  an  evil  dream  ! 
And  little  could  he  guess  how  well 

The  hand  that  plucked  his  golden  flowers, 


76 


THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK. 

Could  hurl  defiance  down  the  dell, 
On  all  his  congregated  powers. 

There,  on  the  peak  "  del  Gabellan," 

The  Hero's  oaken  rampart  rose, 
Above  the  towers  of  San  Juan 

Where  thronged  the  legions  of  his  foes. 
There  first  the  sunrise  Eagle  flew, 

Gold-gleaming,  o'er  the  Land  of  Gold, 
Full  in  that  mustering  army's  view, 

And  cowered  their  numbers  manifold. 

As  some  gaunt  wolf,  that  on  his  prey 

Descending  with  an  eager  dash, 
Finds  there  the  Shepherd's  dog  at  bay, 

And  sees  the  white  teeth  foam  and  gnash, 
Reels  back,  and  crouching,  circles  far, 

Blood-snuffing,  and  at  last  slinks  oft— 
So  came,  so  quailed  Don  Castro's  war, 

Before  that  banner's  flouting  scoff! 

'Twas  nobly  done  !  against  a  host 

To  hurl  their  challenge  down  the  hills. 

Free  hearts,  all  round  them  to  the  coast, 
Leapt  jubilant,  with  prescient  thrills  ; 


THE    STAND    AT    HAWK'S    PEAK.  77 

Far  flashed  the  sign  to  distant  lands, 
Atlantic  cheered  it  with  a  roar  ; 

And  glad  Pacific  clapped  her  hands, 
To  hail  the  coming  conqueror ! 


Once  more  roll  out  thy  signal  sheet 

For  Freedom,  on  her  eminent  hight ! 
Our  hearts  leap  up  with  fiery  beat 

To  join  thee  in  the  moral  fight. 
The  Prairie  wolf  shall  cower  away 

To  his  swamp  lair,  thenceforth  his  grave, 
And  rescued  Kansas  cheer  the  day 

That  saw  thy  conquering  banner  wave. 


A  NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH. 


WHEN  snows  have  fled  from  the  breath  of  Spring, 

And  the  rushing  floods  leap  swollen  on — 
As  a  jewel  set  in  a  mountain  ring, 

On  the  hand  of  the  Giant  Oregon — 
Or  a  star  in  the  dusky  night  of  pines, 
That  bright  in  the  sombre  foliage  shines — 
Or  a  lover's  eye  that  clear,  between 
Dark  lash  and  heavy  brow,  is  seen — 

The  Tlamath  Lake  lies  beautiful, 
In  the  heart  of  its  mighty  hills  and  woods, 

Glassing  them  well  in  its  waveless  lull, 
Or  making  the  mountains,  like  their  floods, 

To  leap  and  quiver,  in  fields  below, 


A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH.  79 

When  its  mirror  moves  with  a  waving  flow, 
As  odorous  winds  from  the  forest  blow. 

But  when  the  red  autumnal  sun 

Rolls  over  the  mountains  in  a  veil 

Of  purpling  mist,  that  seems  to  trail 
On  the  piney  slope  of  each  mighty  sheaf 
In  that  great  Harvest  Field  begun 

Among  the  hills  ;   when  a  mellow  wail — 
As  of  young  love's  delicious  grief, 

Or  the  harp  of  sorrow,  struck  with  one 

Prelusive  note — begin's  to  run 
Through  the  red  arcades  of  pine,  before 
The  harsher  blasts  of  the  winter  'pour^ — 
The  waves  that  roll  on  the  Tlamatli  Lake 

Are  emerald  billows  of  flowing  grass  ; 
The  stag  of  the  hills  may  come  to  slake 
His  thirst  in  the  river,  whose  waters  break 

The  green  expanse,  with  their  fluid  glass, 
But  the  smoke  of  the  Indian's  domed  tent 

Goes  up  from  the  smooth  savannah's  breast, 
As  over  its  sheet  of  waters  went 

The  morning  mist,  when  June  had  kissed 

Their  ripples  awake  with  her  sweet  Southwest. 


80  A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH. 

Lake  Tlamath  lay  like  a  bridge  of  light, 

That  spanned  a  fathomless  gulf  below, 
When  the  May  Moon  on  its  weltering  night 
.   Dissolved,  in  a  silver  overflow, 
And  adown  the  pines  in  flakes  of  white 

On  the  tents  of  the  voyageurs  shook  its  snow. 
No  paddle  disturbed  the  silent  wave  ; 

No  sound  was  out  in  the  silent  air, 
Save  only  the  whispering  tongues  that  gave 

A  weird,  low  murmur,  everywhere, 
A  secret  that  no  soul  divines  — 
The  mystery  of  the  midnight  pines  ! 
And  save  withal  the  flames'  low  mutter, 

That  seemed  as  if  in  vain  they  strove 
Unutterable  things  to  utter, 

Of  the  deeps  below  and  the  heavens  above. 

The  Indian  of  the  Tlamath  Lake 

Is  fierce  as  savage  foe  may  be, 
Remorseless  as  the  wolves  that  break 
The  corral's  hedge,  for  their  famine's  sake, 
When  the  herdsman,  standing  broad  awake, 

And  the  rifle's  leveled  bead,  they  see — 
And  treacherous  as  the  wily  cat — 


A  NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH.  Q 

That  spotless  Tiger  of  the  West, 
So  smooth  in  her  black  and  shining  vest, 
So  still,  through  the  long  reeds  gliding  flat, 
Till  she  darts  on  her  helpless  victim's  breast ! 

His  arrows  are  tipped  with  English  steel, 
Barbed  and  keen,  on  a  feathered  shaft — 
And  bound  to  his  wrist,  by  its  polished  haft, 

Is  an  English  half-axe  hung,  to  deal 
The  nearer  blow,  when,  hand  to  hand 
And  foot  to  foot,  the  foemen  stand 

In  the  deadly  last  appeal. 

But  the  Tlamath's  trail  is  far  away 

From  their  silvery  lake  and  mountain  pines, 
To  the  hostile  south  in  a  fierce  foray, 
Or  northward  with  their  spears, 
Watching  the  shoals  where  the  salmon  shines 
By  the  steep  Cascades,  that  whiten  the  line 
Of  their  nursing  hills,  like  banners  waved 
From  feudal  towers,  for  a  people  saved, 
In  the  olden  lands  and  years. 

Thus  silence  reigned  in  the  weary  camp, 
Unjarred  by  the  slow  and  measured  tramp 

'4* 


82  A.   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH. 

Of  the  wakeful  sentinel  ; 
For  the  voyageurs  all  were  folded  deep, 
In  the  downy  bosom  of  toil-won  sleep, 

And  the  soldiers  slumbered  well. 

Fleet  couriers  from  the  sunrise  land, 

They  had  brought  to  the  Chief  of  the  mountain 

band, 

Over  trackless  wilds  of  steep  and  glen, 
Through  the  deadly  haunts  of  savage  men, 
Sweet  words  of  Home  ;  how  doubly  sweet 

In  the  depths  of  an  utter  solitude, 
Where  the  stealthy  glide  of  the  Indian's  feet, 
Is  the  only  human  tread  they  meet, 

And  that  is  blood-imbrued. 
And  came  withal  a  whispered  call 

To  turn  him  back,  for  a  day  of  need — 
To  the  golden  south,  where  his  gauntlet  fell 
At  Castro's  coward  foot  so  well — 

With  a  whip  in  the  hand  of  his  eager  band 
To  scourge  the  wretch  for  his  miscreant  deed, 

When  the  Hour  should  strike  its  bell  ; 
And  sooth,  his  steed  would  make  good  speed 

With  that  buoyant  hope  in  sell. 


A    NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATII.  83 

Not  yet  the  Leader  gave  his  hand 

To  the  beckoning  hand  of  sweet  Repose, 
With  her  dreams  of  home  in  a  sunny  land, 

Beyond  the  whoop  of  savage  foes. 
With  a  slow  and  cautious  tread,  he  went, 

Between  the  camp-fires  and  the  dark, 
Where  the  flickering  flames,  far  outward,  sent 
The  huge  pine  shadows,  reeling  and  bent, 

Like  wrestling  giants,  grim  arid  stark  ; 
And  he  saw  them  leap  from  tent  to  tent, 

With  their  ghostly  arms  flung  up  in  air, 
As  if  their  frenzied  play  were  meant 

To  warn  him  back  from  a  peril  there, 
Or  so  to  find  some  silent  vent 

For  a  great  and  dumb  despair. 

All  round  the  Camp  his  ear  and  eye 

Caught  every  motion,  and  every  sound  ; 
The  whispering  flames,  and  the  solemn  sigh 
Of  the  pine-tops,  where  the  winds  went  by 

In  their  everlasting  round  ; 
The  creeping  stir  of  the  bristling  leaves 
Where  a  breath  would  dance  their  quivery  sheaves, 
The  moan  of  the  waters  that  came  to  break 


84  A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH. 

On  the  reedy  marge  of  the  Mooned  Lake, 
And  a  low,  faint  murmur,  everywhere, 

From  the  deeps  of  pine  to  the  Tlamath's  verge, 
As  if  the  spirits  who  hovered  there, 
Were  singing,  to  a  love-lorn  air, 

The  prelude  of  a  solemn  dirge  ! 

Such  fancies  are  feeble  to  awe  the  brave  ; 

He  heeds  no  murmur  of  wood  or  wave 

Who  trembles  not  at  a  war-whoop's  yell — 

The  silence  of  the  untrodden  wild, 

And  the  trust  of  nature's  simple  child  — 

The  steed,  quick-eared — who  is  prompt  to  tell 
The  lurking  of  foes — said,  "  All  is  well !" 

Calm  in -assurance  the  Leader  went 
And  sat  at  the  door  of  his  open  tent, 

In  the  light  pf  the  whispering  flames  ; 
And  over  the  page  in  silence  bent, 

That  bore  his  treasured  Names — 
An<i  whose  simple  words  had  power  to  roll 

The  broad  expanse,  with  its  mountain  chains, 

And  deserts  and  woods  and  endless  plains, 
Together,  like  their  pictured  scroll, 


A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH.  Q5 

Bringing  the  utmost  zones  to  meet 
In  a  kiss  of  unity  long  and  sweet. 

What  waking  visions  softly  came 
Between  him  and  the  mystic  flame, 
That  changed  the  deeps  of  the  forest  gloom, 
To  a  twilight  nook  in  a  curtained  room, 
The  heavy  breaths  of  his  sleeping  band 

To  the  ripples  of  Childhood's  sweet  repose — 
The  soft  wind's  touch  to  a  gentle  hand, 
On  his  forehead  pressed,  in  a  far-off  land, 

And  its  sound  to  a  music  he  only  knows — 
While  over  his  head  the  holy  stars, 
Looking  down  through  the  pine  trees'  moving  bars, 

Became  such  eyes  !      Ah  me  !  to  guess 
Were  to  touch  too  near  the  sacred  veil ; 

Or  how,  with  a  growing  vividness, 
The  visions  shone  as  the  fires  grew  pale, 

Stealing  away  into  dreams  of  sleep, 

The  same,  but  ever  more  clear  and  deep  ; 
Till  camp,  and  mountain,  and  Tlamath  vale, 

Were  things  involved  in  a  distant  clime, 
.And  the  purple  mist  of  a  vanished  time. 


86  A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH. 

Hark  !  was  it  not  a  falling  blow 

In  the  dusky  verge  of  the  sleeping  camp  ? 
Look  !   are  they  only  the  shadows,  that  go 
Along  the  pine-bolls,  crouching  low, 

In  the  pale  fire's  dying  lamp  ? 
And  that  the  moan  of  the  breeze  1     Ah,  no  ! 
That  stifled  moan  is  a  dying  groan, 

Where  the  hand  of  the  traitors  fell  ! 
"  To  your  rifles  !  ho  !  'tis  the  savage  foe  !" 
To  their  feet  they  sprang,  and  the  forest  rang 

With  a  long  unearthly  yell, 
And  the  sudden  twang  of  the  deadly  bow  - 

And  the  rifle's  crack,  quick  answering  back 
That  laid  the  foremost  Tlamath  low  ! 

A  moment  now,  for  death  or  life, 

The  pine-woods  blazed  with  the  quick,  hot 

Of  barbed  arrow  and  whizzing  ball  ; 
The  Delawares  plied  the  scalping-knife 

Wherever  a  foe  might  fall, 
And  the  Tlamath's  scalp  was  whirled  on  high, 
With  a  leap,  and  a  fierce  exulting  cry, 
And  such  a  glare  in  the  burning  eye, 

As  looks  but  to  appall ! 


A   NIGHT    BY    LAKE    TLAMATH.  §7 

The  Tlamaths  gave  one  parting  yell, 

One  arrowy  shower,  and  fled, 
And  left  behind  them,  where  he  fell, 

Their  boldest  warrior,  dead — • 
A  royal  chieftain,  stro"ng  and  young, 

Whose  polished  arrows,  and  plumage  red, 
And  cap  with  glittering  jewels  strung, 

Bespoke  the  flower  of  their  savage  band, 

Of  the  subtlest  brain,  and  the  firmest  hand, 

A  warrior  proud  and  dread. 
Alas  !  too  well  in  the  silent  dark 
The  red  axe  struck  to  its  sleeping  mark  ; 

Young  Basil  the  gallant,  the  loved  and  fair — 
A  sinewy  Sioux  swift  and  stark, 

And  a  bold  broad-breasted  Delaware — 

Lay  bleeding  and  warm,  but  lifeless  there, 
But  dear  to  their  souls  was  the  red  cup  poured 
With  another  dawn,  on  the  Tlamath  horde, 
When  the  hungry  fire,  and  the  rifle's  shot, 
Lapped  up  their  homes  to  a  blackened  spot, 
And  mowed  their  swarms  like  the  falling  grain, 

When  the  reapers  bow  to  the  harvest  plain • 

Till  their  treacherous  power,  with  their  warriors 

Fell  shattered  and  was  not.  [slain, 


BASIL    LAJEUNESSE. 

A    THRENODY. 

BY  the  beautiful  Lake  TLAMATH 
Sleeps  Basil  Lajeunesse, 

With  his  arms  upon  his  bosom, 
And  his  mantle  on  his  face. 

The  Pines'  seolian  murmur 
Is  over  him  forever, 

And  a  moaning,  moaning,  moaning, 
A  melancholy  moaning, 
Like  a  widow's  lone  intoning, 

Joins,  from  the  muffled  motion 
Of  the  darkly-rolling  river. 

By  the  beautiful  Lake  Tlamath 
Sleeps  Basil  Lajeunesse  ; 


BASIL    LAJEUNESSE.  89 

He  has  fought  the  good  life-battle, 

He  has  run  the  manly  race. 
We  mourned  him  like  a  brother, 

For  we  knew  him  but  to  love  him  ; 
And  the  dripping,  dripping,  dripping, 

The  musical,  low  dripping 

Of  the  dew-drops,  was  in  keeping 
With  the  tears  that,  in  our  silence, 

Shed  we,  womanly,  above  him. 

By  the  beautiful  Lake  Tlamath 

Sleeps  Basil  Lajeunesse, 
The  young,  the  swift,  the  beautiful, 

With  every  manly  grace  ; 
The  virgins  of  Canadia, 

Far,  far  away  shall  mourn  him ; 
And  the  wailing,  wailing,  wailing, 

The  weary  west-wind's  wailing, 

Will  waft  them  one  unfailing 
Memorial,  low  monody, 

From  the  bed  where  we  have  borne  him. 

By  the  beautiful  Lake  Tlamath 
Sleeps  Basil  Lajeunesse, 


90  BASIL    LA JEUNESSE. 

But  not  Ion gf  shall  sleep  forgotten 

In  a  solitary  place  ! 
The  Future's  fair-haired  Virgins, 

Along  that  moon-lit  river, 
In  a  soothing,  soothing,  soothing, 

Soft  threnode,  spirit-soothing, 

The  ruffled  night  air  smoothing 
With  the  beautiful  Lake  Tlamath 

Shall  weave  his  name  forever  ! 


DEFEAT    OF    WAH-L AH-WAH-L AHS 


"  VENGEANCE  on  the  white  marauders, 

Vengeance  on  their  gathered  host, 
Who  are  grasping  all  our  borders, 

From  the  mountains  to  the  coast. 
They  have  robbed  us,  they  have  slain  us, 
But  their  Law  shall  never  chain  us, — 

For  the  red-tongued  scalping-knife 
Shall  declare  the  wrongs  we  bear, 

In  exterminating  strife. 
Rouse  our  overwhelming  numbers! 

Blood  for  blood,  and  life  for  life  ! 
Strike  their  war-men  in  their  slumbers, 

Fire  the  home,  and  brain  the  wife  !" 


92         DEFEAT    OF    W  AH-LAII-  W  AH-L  All  8. 

Yelled  the  savage  WAH-LAH-WAH-LAHS, 
With  a  peal  that  rent  the  sky, 

Like  the  terrible  "  il-Allahs" 
Of  the  Moslem's  charging  cry. 

All  the  vale  of  Sacramento 

Shuddered  at  the  vengeful  yell ; 
Ever  clearer,  louder,  nearer, 

Clearer,  louder,  more  terrific, 
On  the  scattered  Homes  it  fell, 

Till  the  snowy-peaked  Sierra, 
Thousand-echoed,  caught  the  terror, 
And  her  wrath-white  lips  magnific 

Flung  it  to  the  broad  Pacific, 
With  an  ever-deepening  swell. 

Followers  of  the  Eagle  Banner  ! 

Conquerors  of  the  "  Golden  Gate !" 
Periled  life,  and  periled  honor, 

In  a  swirl  of  refluent  fate, 

North  and  south,  upon  you  wait ! 
Rebel  Dons  at  Santa  Barbara 

Snatch  the  loosened  reins  of  State  ; 
While  the  angered  northern  savage, 


DEFEAT    OF    WAH-LAH-WAH-LAHS. 

Eager  now  to  burn  and  ravage, 
In  your  perils  grown  elate, 
For  the  fatal  moment  waits, 
When  but  blood  his  fury  sates. 

Where  is  now  the  dauntless  Leader 
Of  the  never-daunted  clan  ? 

He  who  on  the  white  Nevada — 
On  the  peak  "  del  Gabellan"— 
Hung  before  his  narrow  van 
Freedom's  meteor  flag  again, 

Threatful  with  its  bloody  bars, 

Glaring  with  defiant  stars 

On  the  treacherous  Mexican  ? 
Where  is  now  the  "  Iron  Man" 

With  his  Braves  who  never  blanch, 
Who,  in  spite  of  twanging  bow, 
Lance's  hiss,  and  axe's  blow, 

Rode  that  ride  at  Redding's  Ranch, 
On  a  forest  of  the  foe  ? 

Summoning  his  bold  Battalion, 
He  has  turned  to  tame  Rebellion 
On  the  hills  of  Santa  Barbara, — 


93 


94        DEFEAT    OF    WAH-L AH-W AH-LAHS, 

Santa  Barbara  won  and  lost, 
Where  their  mettle  soon  was  tried. 
Fiercely,  at  the  next  Yule-tide, 
As  the  storm  in  sleety  horror 
Wrapt  the  shuddering  Sierra, 

While  the  dauntless  hero  cross'd. 
With  their  Leader,  side  by  side, 
They,  in  valor's  hardy  pride, 

Charged  the  Elemental  Host, 
Though  a  hundred  horses  died 

By  the  arrows  of  the  Frost! 

Needs  the  land  such  mettle  now, 
For  a  quick  and  deadly  blow 

In  the  Sacramento's  valley, 
Where  the  savage  Wah-lah-wah-lahs 

To  the  dance  of  vengeance  rally 
Like  the  heroes  in  Valhalla's 

Wassail  wild,  from  ghastly  bowls 

Pledging  their  infernal  "  skoals." 

'.'urn,  thou  thunder-bolt  of  war, 

Flash  thy  lightnings  on  the  north  ; 
'  Help!"  forsaken  wives  implore, 


DEFEAT    OF    WAII-L AH- WAH-LAHS.        95 

Old  and  worn,  who  fight  no  more, 
Babes  and  virgins  near  and  far, 
Call  thy  conquering  valor  foith. 

Eager  for  the  fearful  fray, 

Round  the  Leader  flocked  his  band, 

Fiery  heart  and  iron  hand, 
On  their  chargers  fierce  as  they. 

Snuffing  battle  in  the  gale 

That  swept  broadly  down  the  vale, 
Seemed,  in  equal  ardor  fit, 
Horse  and  Rider  champed  the  bit, 

As  impatient  of  delay. 

But  the  Chieftain,  with  the  lifting 

Of  his  right  hand,  waved  away 
All  the  longing  Rangers,  thronging, 

Panting  for  the  savage  fray. 

"  Not  to-day  !  not  to-day  ! 
I  have  need  of  picked  companions 

For  my  conquerless  array  ; 
Ye  who  ran  the  roaring  canons, 

Making  hardihood  a  play, 

Well  can  do  what  valor  may  ; 


96        DEFEAT    OF    W  AH-L  AH-W  AH-LAHS. 

But  a  courage  more  divine 

Must  be  mine,  if  Heaven  incline 
In  my  perilous  path  to  shine. 

"  Under  that  great  Eye  who  sees  us, 
I  must  go,  and  you  must  stay ; 

Let  your  fiery  valor  burn, 

It  shall  blaze,  at  my  return, 

On  the  ramparts  of  Don  Jesus, 
And  the  rebel  south  affray. 

Now  with  these  my  chosen  Three, 

I  go  forth  to  victory, 

Or  what  fate  the  Power  decrees  us 
Whom  to  know  is  to  obey." 

Forth  they  rode,  the  gallant  Four, 

Rode  the  Leader  with  his  Three, 
From  the  wonder  of  their  fellows, 
Why  they  rode,  or  why  no  more, 

On  so  fierce  an  enemy ; 
Forth  they  rode  with  equal  flight 

Till  they  heard  the  war-whoop's  roar, 
Saw  the  war-fires  burning  bright, 
Saw  the  angry  Wah-lah-wah-lahs 


DEFEAT    OF    W  AH-LAH-WAH-L  AH  S.        97 

Whet  their  vengeance  for  the  fight ; 
Heard  the  cry  which  filled  the  hollows 

With  far  echoes  of  affrightK 
As  the  judgmerit-kriells  of  conscience 

Fill  the  murderer's  dreams  by  night. 

With  a  slow  and  measured  tramp, 
Rode  the  One  before  the  Three, 

Straight  into  the  stormy  camp, 
Roaring  round  them  like  a  sea  ; 

Straight  to  where  the  old  War-Sachem 
Swung  his  axe  in  savage  glee, 

On  imagined  scalp-locks  clutching, 

From  invisible  mothers  snatching 

•     Babes  his  wrath  alone  could  see. 

In  a  lull  of  sudden  wonder — 
Hush  of  that  mid-volleyed  thunder, 
Which  might  make  the  terror  grander, 
Thus  outspake  the  bold  Commander : 

"  I  have  heard  the  wrongs  you  suffer, 

Heard  the  cry  of  your  distress  ; 
Here  with  open  hands  I  proffer 
5 


98        DEFEAT    OF    W  AII-LAH-W  AH-LAHS. 

Pledge  and  promise  of  redress. 
I  have  steeds  as  fleet  as  arrows, 

And  unerring  as  the  bow — 
I  will  bring  them  when  the  sparrows 

Sing  for  the  retreating  snow  ; 
Though  for  many  lingering  morrows 

Southward  down  the  coast  I  go. 
Chase  the  game  along  the  narrows, 

Elk  and  deer  and  buffalo  : 
Call  your  kinsfolk,  your  companions, 

To  the  better  way  ye  learn  ; 
Spear  the  salmon  in  the  canons — 
Hunt  and  fish,  and  spare  the  lives 
Of  our  little  ones  and  wives — 

Live  in  peace  till  I  return  : 
And  this  warrior  by  my  side 
With  your  gallant  Braves  may  ride, 
Holding  up  our  Banner's  pride, 

That  before  your  path  shall  burn, 
An  inviolate  guard  and  guide, 

He  were  rash  who  dared  to  spurn  !" 

Peace  was  on  the  Leader's  brow, 
And  Persuasion  on  his  tongue  ; 


DEFEAT    OF     W  AH-LAH- WAH-LAH8.        99 

Honor  sealed  his  simple  vow,  ^ 

Faith  on  every  accent  hung. 
From  his  lip  whose  smile  was  balm, 

From  his  eye  whose  glance  was  law, 
Round  him  grew  a  ring  of  calm, 

Round  him  grew  a  ring  of  awe  ; 
For  his  words  were  words  of  truth, 

And  his  look  was  silent  Power  : 
Hoary  chief  and  fiery  youth, 

Yielding  all  the  centered  weight 

Of  their  hoarded  wrath  and  hate, 

To  an  action  calm  and  great, 

Were  the  conquest  of  that  hour. 

"  Take,"  he  said,  "  my  bearded  Brave, 

Pledge  my  foot  will  never  lag 
In  the  promises  I  gave  ; 

Take  the  white  man's  starry  Flag, 
For  where'er  its  splendors  wave 

O'er  your  march,  by  dell  and  crag, 
Moves  the  great  shield  of  our  Law  ; 
And  the  foe  that  strikes  that  banner 
Strikes  me,  and  the  jealous  honor 

Of  a  broad  Land,  stretching  far 

Both  her  arms,  of  Peace  and  War  !" 


100 


DEFEAT    OF    W  AH-LAH-W  AH-LAH8. 

Ceased  the  war-cry  of  the  savage, 
Ceased  the  will  to  burn  and  ravage, 

And  the  valleys  slept  again. 
Backward  rode  the  gallant  Three, 

Rode  the  Leader  and  his  Twain, 
From  a  bloodless  victory, 

From  a  field  without  its  slain ; 
And  the  boldest  Wah-lah-wah-lahs 

Rode  to  battle  in  his  train. 


THE   RIDE    OF    ONE  HUNDRED. 


"  STEEDS  !  steeds  for  my  Riders  !  the  fleetest  and 
best! 

My  Country  demands,  and  there's  death  in  delay  ! 
Unbar  your  corral  to  a  People's  behest, 

And  lavish  your  treasures  to  speed  us  away  ! 
The  stars  of  my  banner  must  blaze  in  the  rout 

Of  Castro,  the  hater,  the  coward,  and  slave  ! 
And  its  stripes  like  a  manifold  scourge  shall  flout 

That  insolent  traitor  death-hunting  the  brave  ! 

"  He  is  trailing  his  hounds  to  the  deadly  attack 
On- the  Guards  of  Los  ANGEL os,  sturdy  and  few, 

But  a  week  this  day  will  I  harry  him  back 

With  the  shattered  remains  of  his  howling  crew." 


]Q2     THE  BIDE  OF  ONE  HUNDRED. 

The  Ranch    of  Valleyo  was  buried  in  sleep, 
But  it  roused  at  the  call  of  that  dark  Mountaineer, 

Who  had  marshaled  his  band  for  a  hurricane-sweep 
Through  the   lines  of  Rebellion,  flank,  center, 
and  rear ! 

"  Two  hundred  leagues  !  and  a  savage  no  Road 

Over  bleak  sierra  and  quaking  morass  ! 
Through  gulches  untamed  by  a  human  abode, 

And  the  wild  '  el  Rincon's^  weltering  pass  ! 
It  can  not  be  done  !"  and  Valleyo's  head 

Shook  a  creditless  "  No"  in  the  face  of  the  chief. 
"  But  it  must  !  and  it  SHALL  BE  !"  the  warrior  said, 

"  My  Land   is  my  pledge,  and  the   moment  is 
brief!" 

Three  hundred  steeds,  from  Valleyo's  Ranch, 

Went  down  the  SONOMA  together  that  night, 
With  the  headlong  plunge  of  an  avalanche, 

That  still  in  descending  redoubles  its  might ! 
Through  the  hills  and  the  hollows  the  echoes  were 
waked, 

With  a  charging  shout  of  the  daring  and  free — 
Till  down  Yerba  Buena  her  cottages  quaked 

In  a  prescient  throb  of  her  magic  To  BE. 


THE    EIDE    OF    ONE    HUNDKED.          JQ3 

In  a  snow-flight  tinged  with  a  raining  of  red, 
The    galloping   chargers   were    strung   to   their 

speed  ; 
For  the  mouths  that  were  foaming,  and  flanks  that 

bled, 
Showered  thus  in  the    path   of   each   emulous 

steed  ! 

The  Riders  leapt  down  from  the  beast  over-spent 
To  their  riderless  runners  that  scoured  o'er  the 

plain  ; 
And  their  pathway  was  marked,  far  along,  as  they 

went, 
By  the  wild-dogs  feeding  on  fallen  arid  slain  ! 

No  needless  delay  for  imperative  need, 

One  nap.,  and  a  snatch,  and  away  to  their  Ride  ! 
With  their  swarthy  FREMONT  dashing  on  in  the 
lead, 

And  his  wiry  Kit  Carson  almost  at  his  side. 
No  sound  on  their  charge  but  the  storming  of  hoofs, 

And  the  snort  of  the  steeds  as  they  darted  and  flew, 
Or  a  shout  from  the  ridges  hurled  down  to  the  roofs, 

Like  a  voice,  from  the  clouds  or  a  bolt  from  the 
blue! 


JQ4          THE    EIDE    OF    ONE    HUNDRED. 

Through  startled  San  Pablo,  through  hushed  Mon 
terey  ; 

Through  far-scattered  hamlets,  o'er  hedge-row 

and  fosse  ! 
The  lone  watcher,  roused  by  the  stormy  affray, 

Just  muttered  a  curse,  with  the  sign  of  the  cross  ! 
The  spectres  that  ride  on  the  Brocken  by  night, 

Not  wilder  nor  fleeter  had  seemed  to  their  terror, 
Than  these,  in  their  wordless  and  weariless  flight, 

Over  ruinous  rifts,  and  the  jagged  Sierra  ! 

The  dark-flooded  Rio  rolled  down  in  their  path  ; 

They  faltered  one  leap,  at  its  ruinous  roar  ; 
"  On !    on  through   the   torrent !    we'll    buffet   its 

wrath  !" 
And  the  Leader  dashed  on  through  the  whirl  to 

the  shore  ! 
Swept  down  like  the  leaves  of  the   forest,  they 

went, 

And  the  dark  Sacrifices  whitened  with  spray, 
As  they  struggled  and  plunged  in  the  deadly  de 
scent, 
Till  all  but  the  rearmost  rode  out  and  away ! 


THE    EIDE    OF    ONE    HUNDEED.          ^05 

"  The  Dead  to   their  Maker  !    the  Quick  to  the 

Charge  ! 

The  bights  of  the  Puebla  are  looming  in  sight ; 

There  wavers  the  Banner  of  Stars,  on  their  marge  ! 

Now,  plunge  in  the  Battle  !   and   God   for  the 

Right!" 
Oh  !  what  a  wild  yell,  like  the  funeral  knell 

Of  rampant  Rebellion,  went  up  with  that  cry  ! 
As  full  on  the  rear  of  the  Traitor  they  fell, 

Like  a  thunder-bolt  launched  from  a  shadowless 
sky! 

"  FREMONT  to  the  rescue  !     Ho,  rally  once  more  ! 

He  has  come  with  his  Riders  !  the  dark  Moun 
taineer  !" 
The  garrison's  volley  rang  out  with  a  roar, 

In  reply  to  the  thunders  that  rose  on  the  rear  ! 
Star  flashing  to  star,  from  their  flags,  o'er  the  foe, 

Sent  a  cheer  to  the  Braves,  but  a  basilisk  glare 
On  the  terrified  legions  dispersed  at  a  blow, 

And  whelmed  by  the  Riders  in  final  despair  ; 

For  the  Lancers  of  Castro  went  down  in  that  storm, 
Like  reeds  of  the  fen  in  a  tempest  of  fire, 
5* 


106         THE    BIDE    OF    ONE    II  UN  DEED. 

Where  the  fierce  Wah-lah-wah-lah's  ungarmented 

form 

Rode  on,  like  a  demon  of  doom,  in  his  ire  ; 
And  the  swart  Mountaineers  with  their  Chief  in 

the  van, 

Wheeled  in,  with  a  gallop,  and  swept  them  away  ! 
So  rode  The  One  Hundred,  led  on  by  The  Man, 
And  the  arm  of  Rebellion  was  broken  that  day. 


Again  to  the  rescue  !  undaunted  FREMONT  ! 

The  hell-hounds  of  treachery,  snuffing  for  blood, 
Are  loosed  on  the  Man-child  at  Liberty's  font — 

Young  KANSAS  the  free,  trampled  down  by  their 

brood  ; 
Now  thund:  r  the  war-cry,  as  then  it  was  thundered, 

Charge  home  on  Oppression !  and  God  for  the 

Right ! 
Our  Millions  will  ride  in  the  path  of  the  Hundred, 

And  bloodless,  or  bleeding,  win  all  in  the  fight ! 


CONQUEST    ENDED 

BY    THE    FATE    OF    DON    JESUS    PICO. 

DECEMBER'S  glowing  sun  looked  down          A 

On  verdant  field  and  leafy  oak, 
SAN  Luis'  towers,  and  roofs  of  brown, 

And  the  swift  victor's  camp-fire  smoke. 

Before  its  golden  beams  illume 

The  eastern  mountains'  sea- ward  wall, 

The  captive  foe  must  meet  his  doom, 
From  many  a  deadly  rifle-ball ! 

No  blanching  on  his  manly  cheeks, 
No  quailing  in  his  dauntless  eye  ; 

Firm  as  his  own  Nevada's  peaks, 

The  Insurgent  Chieftain  waits  to  die. 


108  CONQUEST    ENDED. 

To  die  a  soldier's  death  of  shame, 

Twice  conquered  by  a  single  hand, 
And  wearing  on  his  mountain  name 

,          The  fire-mark  of  Dishonor's  brand. 
v^ 

Wrapt  in  his  "  old  Castilian  pride," 
He  begged  no  boon  of  lingering  life  ; 

If  for  his  Country's  love  he  died, 

Why  kneel  to  live  for  Home  and  Wife  ? 

Home,  Mother,  Wife,  and  dark-eyed  Girls, 
Dear  to  the  Brave,  and  doubly  dear 

When  o'er  him  Death's  white  breaker  curls- 
Wrung  out  no  weak  memorial  tear. 

A  glitter  on  the  snowy  peaks, 

And  on  the  rifle's  ready  line, 
To  his  calm  eye  the  moment  speaks, 

And  flashes  far  its  fatal  sign. 

Alone  in  his  unguarded  tent, 

Watching  the  Hour's  relentless  hand, 
The  Victor  stood,  with  forehead  bent, 
.        Lip-parted  for  the  last  command  : 


CONQUEST    ENDED.  109 

When  all  the  Captive's  wealth  of  Home, 
Mother  and  Wife  and  black-eyed  Girls 

Thronged  round  him— these  with  cheeks  like  foam 
In  the  dark  splendor  of  their  curls — 

That  with  her  pale  majestic  face 

Crowned  well  by  smooth  Madonna  hair, 

And  clinging  in  a  linked  embrace, 

They  breathed  and  looked  and  wept  their  prayer. 

"  Mercy  !  thou  merciful  and  brave  ; 

Spare,  spare  to  us  our  more  than  life  ! 
The  Husband,  Son,  and  Father  save, 

To  weeping  Mother,  Child,  and  Wife. 

"  Perhaps  a  mother's  fading  eye 

Watches  the  west  for  thy  return  ; 
A  true  wife's  prayer  ascends  on  high, 

Tender  with  thoughts  that  o'er  thee  yearn  ; 

"  Or  in  an  hour  that  change  may  bring, 

Far  from  their  fallen  father's  tomb, 
Thy  children's  happy  laugh  may  ring, 

Unconscious  of  their  flying  doom  ! 


HO  CONQUEST    ENDED. 

"  God  spare  them  long  !  and  spare  us,  thou, 
The  bitter  cup  they  would  not  drain  ; 

And  we  will  hold  thee,  close  as  now, 

To  hearts  where  grateful  love  shall  reign." 

Oh,  to  have  seen  our  Hero  then  ! 

The  great  tear  trembling  in  his  eye, 
Not  "  first"  alone,  but  "  best  of  men  !" 

Had  been  our  heart's  applauding  cry. 

Guards,  lead  the  Captive  to  my  tent!" 
Calm  in  the  rifle's  deadly  aim, 
The  Doomed  had  stood,  and  proudly  went — 
But  seeing,  trembled  as  he  came. 

"  Take  from  my  hand,  and  with  my  hand, 

Full  pardon,  arid  thy  periled  life, 
To  be  the  bulwark  of  thy  land, 

The  joy  of  Mother,  Child,  and  Wife !" 

Thrice  conquered,  at  the  Victor's  knee 

The  strong  man  bowed,  with  heaving  breaat, 

Devoting  hand  and  heart  to  be 
The  ransom  of  the  far  Southwest. 


CONQUEST    ENDED. 

There  bowed  a  People's  jealous  hate, 
There  breathed  a  People's  loyal  vow  ; 

And,  thronging  through  the  Golden  Gate, 
Our  myriads  share  that  conquest  now. 


More  worth  than  laurels  dripping  red, 
Is  Mercy's  stainless  lily  crown  ; 

Its  odor,  round  the  Brave  Man  shed, 
Is  sweeter  than  his  old  renown.  J 

Not  myriads  alone  shall  bless 

The  Hero  of  the  Spotless  Shield, 

For  now  our  rousing  millions  press 
Around  his  Banner  in  the  field. 

Like  lightning  to  the  embattled  wrong, 
Like  sunshine  to  the  poor  and  weak, 

It  calls  the  dauntless  and  the  strong, 
It  lures  the  merciful  and  meek. 

Not  myriads  alone  shall  share 

The  triumphs  of  that  glorious  flag  ; 


CONQUEST    ENDED. 

But,  from  the  walls  of  Slavery's  lair, 
To  white  Nevada's  farthest  crag, 

O'er  all  the  land  his  courage  gave 
To  Freedom  and  the  march  of  man, 

When,  unpolluted  by  a  slate, 
Rolls  west  her  endless  caravan, 

May  teeming  millions  find  a  home, 
And  spread  the  empire  of  the  free, 

From  far  Pacific's  whitening  foam 
To  broad  Atlantic's  heaving  sea ! 


TO  CAPTAIN  J.  C.  FREMONT. 

TBOM  THE  SPANISH  OF  DON  HEBNANDO  FTJEEO. 
[Log  Angelos,  Feb.,  1847.] 

BRAVE  Foe  !  whose  conquering  sword  is  wreathed 

With  olive,  never  stained  by  wrong  ; 
Whose  spirit,  in  thy  warriors  breathed, 

Imparts  thy  courage  high  and  strong, 
I  crown  thee  generous  as  brave, 

Proud  peer  of.  all  the  great  and  free, 
And  bless  defeat  itself  which  gave 

Our  land,  our  laws,  our  all  to  thee  ! 

From  thee,  as  midnight  from  the  sun, 
Shrank  Castro,  anarchy,  and  chains  ! 


14  T0    CAPTAIN    J.    C.    FEEMONT. 

Thy  crimeless  victories,  bravely  won, 
Gave  freedom  to  our  scourged  domains. 

Law  followed  in  thy  glorious  track, 
And  Mercy  flew  by  Valor's  side  ; 

Ah,  Jesu  !  that  this  land  should  lack 
What  rights  a  noble  Foe  supplied  ! 

A  Foe  no  more  !   with  proffered  hand, 

And  grateful  heart,  we  hail  thee  Friend ! 
Magnanimous  to  a  fallen  Land, 

Whose  old  Castilian  pride  may  bend 
To  a  great  Heart,  but  sooner  dies 

Than  blanch  at  death — I  crown  thee  Great, 
In  action  strong,  in  council  wise, 

True  savior  of  a  tottering  State  ! 

I  see  the  ancient  fire  renewed 

In  this  last  age  of  coward  men  ; 
TEXEDA'S  dauntless  heart,  endued 

With  stubborn  virtue,  lives  again  ; 
MAMAYA'S  fiery  will  in  war, 

Puts  lightning  in  thy  every  blow  ; 
The  Western  World's  young  CAMPEDOR, 

Thy  very  presence  quells  the  foe  ! 


TO    CAPTAIN    J.     C.    FREMONT. 

No  other  hand  could  guide  so  well 

Your  sunrise  Eagle  on  our  hills  : 
Our  jealous  hate  might  ne'er  repel, 

But  would  have  stung,  with  clinging  ills. 
The  victor,  who  in  triumph's  flush 

Knew  not  so  grandly  to  forbear — 
For  the  Guerilla's  steel  can  blush, 

But  not  his  cheek,  at  deeds  we  dare  ! 

Tracked  by  the  glare  of  burning  homes, 

By  childhood's  curse  and  woman's  wail, 
'Tis  thus,  the  heartless  conqueror  comes, 

Whose  palh  is  one  red  murder-trail  ! 
But  white  hands  down  thy  swift  career 

The  dark-eyed  signoritas  wave, 
AnI  matrons  join  the  deepening  cheer 

That  hails  thee  Merciful  as  Brave  ! 


FAREWELL    TO    "SACRAMENTO." 


HURRAH  !  and  away  !     My  Steed,  good-bye  ! 

Gray  Sacramento,  I  glory  to  see 
Thy  smoking  rnane  and  thy  blazing  eye, 

And  thy  broad  breast  swelling  to  be  free  ! 
Almost  it  seems  that  a  human  soul, 
With  its  lofty  essence  of  self-control, 

And  that  divine  disdain  to  be 
The  creature  of  any,  which  marks  the  goal 

Of  a  higher  nature  won, 
Were  speaking  now,  in  thy  glorious  mien, 
And  making  the  fire  of  thine  eye  more  keen, 
As  I  shout  to  cheer  thee  on  ! 

Rushing  away  to  the  reinless  herd, 

Thou  hast  cleared  the  prairie,  fleet  as  a  bird, 


FAREWELL    TO    "SACRAMENTO."       H7 

With  a  joyous  prance  for  thy  wordless  glee, 
And  a  backward  glance  of  pride  for  me, 
And  another,  as  proud,  for  the  jealous  crowd, 
Sent  over  the  left  exultingly  back, 
With  a  challenge  to   come   if  they  will,  on  a 

track 
That  runs  like   a  flash  through  the  tempest's 

rack — 
Thyself  the  flash  of  thy  own  dust-cloud  ! 

Away  with  thy  fellows,  who  hail  thee  in  pride, 
I  see  thee  dashing  the  laggards  aside, 
As  a  steamship  dashes  the  billowy  tide, 
For  thy  tameless  purpose  is  still  to  lead  ! 
Hurrah !  the  hunter  who  hopes  to  ride 
With  a  bit  for  thee,  my  gallant  Steed, 
Should  mount  the  Eagle  for  better  speed, 
With  a  shooting  star  for  his  only  guide, 
And  train  his  nimble  hand  to  throw 
The  lightning-streak  for  his  red  lasso  ! 

Ha  !  ha  !     I  laugh  with  thy  victor  laugh  ! 
And  see  with  thee,  from  that  burning  eye, 
The  hills  and  the  woods  go  drifting  by, 


US       FAREWELL    TO    "  S  A  C  K  AMENTO." 

Like  clouds  of  hurricane-winnowed  chaff! 
As  if  the  world  were  around  thee  hurled — 
That  eye  the  center,  from  which  it  whirled, 

And  its  bicker  thy  jubilant  laugh. 

Thou  hast  served  me  well,  and  I  speed  thee  well, 

My  gallant  Steed,  forever  free  ! 
Leaping  the  cliffs  like  a  light  gazelle, 
And  far  out-flying  the  very  yell 
Of  the  savage  hordes,  whose  arrows  fell 

In  a  pattering  hail  on  our  smoking  trail, 

Whole  roods  behind  thy  meteor  tail, 
And  wasted  there,  on  the  desert  air, 

The  vengeance  meant  for  me. 

Thou  hast  borne  me  over  the  herbless  waste, 
With  a  hardy  mettle  and  eager  haste, 
That  left  swift  Famine,  thin  and  pale, 
Drifting  astern  on  the  panting  gale  ! 

Little  to  thee,  as  a  stumbling-block, 

Was  fallen  tree  or  fallen  rock  ; 
One  bound  went  clear,  over  rock  and  tree  ! 

The  treacherous  cleft  was  spanned  and  left, 
With  a  graceful  daring,  proud  to  see  ; 


FAREWELL    TO    "  8  ACE  AMENTO."       Jj 

The  roaring  floods  thou  hast  carried  me  through, 
With  the  buoyant  bound  of  the  fleet  canoe, 
Or  the  lighter  glide  of  the  swift  curlew 
Across  the  waves  of  a  troubled  sea. 

I  have  pillowed  my  head  on  thy  dark  gray  side, 

Watching  the  stars,  our  golden  guide  ; 

We  have  drunk  together  the  same  clear  flow 

rroin  the  cups  of  the  playful  brooks,  that  grow 
To  majestical  rivers  far  down  below. 
Almost,  by  times,  I  had  need  to  share 
The  bitter  herbs  of  thy  scanty  fare — 
And  oft  have  we  gone  to  one  roofless  bed, 
With  the  same  bare  sod  beneath  us  spread, 
Or  coiled  in  the  folds  of  the  falling  snow, 
Where  man  and  beast  at  the  dawn  were  found, 

^ach  lying  apart  in  his  silent  mound, 

Vs  if  our  camp  were  a  burial-ground 
For  the  sleep  of  the  nameless  dead  ! 

My  dauntless  KIT  has  a  plume  for  thee  ! 
For  thy  saving  speed  in  an  hour  of  need, 
When  thy  hoofs  were  fleet,  and  his  rifle  slow, 
To  level  the  death-doing  Indian  foe, 


120       FAREWELL    TO    "  S  ACE  AMENTO." 

Whose  fatal  point  was  drawn  to  the  bow — 
Thy  swift  leap  trampled  him  down  at  a  blow, 
And  my  Lad  stood  peril-free  ! 

Ha  !  ha  !     I  shout  to  thy  gallant  neigh, 
And  cheer  thee  on  thy  reinless  way, 

Free  !  free  to  thy  heart's  desire  ! 
Ill  fare  the  hand  that  touches  again 
The  dark  gray  ridge  of  thy  tossing  mane  ! 
Or  thy  swelling  nostrils,  red  and  thin, 
Sucking  the  air  like  a  whirlwind  in, 

To  snort  it  out  in  fire  ! 
Never  again  let  rider  sit 

On  thy  strong  back,  my  noble  Steed  ! 
Nor  part  thy  teeth  with  the  iron  bit, 

To  pamper  his  pride,  or  serve  his  need. 
I  give  thee  to  the  unbounded  plain, 
With  the  whole  broad  West  for  thy  fair  domain, 

And  a  wild  hurrah,  for  my  parting  word  ! 
Wherever  the  fire  of  thy  heart  may  lead, 
Go  forth,  forever  unleashed  and  freed, 
Thy  best  defense  in  thy  own  good  speed — 

Thou  lord  of  the  reinless  herd ! 


THE    PRAIRIE    CAMP. 


As  sloops  becalmed  upon  the  deep, 
Or  birds  upon  the  wing  asleep, 
White  on  the  Kansas'  boundless  plain 
The  Explorer's  tents  are  seen  again  ; 
For  still  undaunted  to  the  last, 
By  woes  to  come,  or  perils  past, 
Again  he  dared  the  winter's  wrath — 
To  trace  the  inevitable  path 
Where  yet  the  Lightning's  moaning  lyre 
Shall  wail  her  bondage  to  the  wire, 
While  shriek  the  white-maned  Steeds  of  Fire- 
That  path  he  would  have  trod  before 
When,  wandering  in  the  mountains  hoar, 


122 


THE     PEA  IK  IE     CAMP. 


Came  pale  Disaster  for  their  Guide, 
And  brave  hearts,  scattered  far  and  wide, 
In  snowy  gulfs  sank  down  and  died. 

But  far  from  his  white  tents  to-day, 

The  Leader  held  his  lonely  way. 

Disease  had  touched  the  "  Iron  Man," 

But  not  the  less  his  valor  ran 

High  bounding,  eager  to  return, 

Where  now  their  smouldering  watch-fires  burn, 

Arid  once  again,  in  courage  stern, 

To  charge,  with  his  devoted  band, 

The  horrors  of  the  mountain-land. 

The  lingering  voyageurs  set  their  camp 
Where,  day  by  day,  the  Bison's  tramp 
Came  booming  o'er  the  rolling  plain, 
Like  surges  of  the  watery  main  ; 
And  bounding  over  many  a  slope, 
Flew  by  the  graceful  Antelope, 
Light,  slender,  fleet,  and  beautiful, 
Skimming  the  long  waves  like  a  gull ; 
While,  from  his  covert  in  the  wood, 
Came  forth  by  times  and  wondering  stood 


THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP. 

The  stately  Elk  in  all  the  pride 

Of  his  huge  antlers  branching  wide, 

As  first  upon  his  startled  sight 

Appeared  the  low  tents,  gleaming  white — 

Then  darting  down  the  river,  sped — 

The  cleft  air  hissing  round  his  head, 

His  branchy  horns,  now  seen,  now  lost, 

Like  leafless  oak-boughs  tempest-tost, 

Rising  and  sinking  on  the  view, 

As  o'er  the  endless  reach  he  flew. 

Along  the  river's  banks  of  green 
The  willow  hung  its  pendent  screen, 
And  dark  in  heavier  masses  stood 
The  thick  groves  of  the  cottonwood, 
While  on  the  waves  that  never  broke, 
Hung  a  broad  crest  of  giant  oak. 

Far  o'er  the  plain  as  sight  could  pass, 
Rolled,  deep  and  brown,  the  sea  of  grass, 
Whose  lifted  surge,  a  moment  seen, 
Tossed  up  its  hidden  wealth  of  green, 
Flashing  an  inward  transmarine, 
Like  ocean's  billows  in  the  light, 
Just  ere  the  long  curl  breaks  in  white. 


123 


124  THE    PRAIRIE    CAMP. 

The  Prairie  Sage,  a  matted  mass, 
Like  brown  rocks  in  the  flowing  grass, 
Would  whiten  to  the  ruffling  breeze, 
As  by  the  foam  of  breaking  seas  ; 
While,  here  and  there,  the  mottled  hen 
Rose  from  the  mass,  and  sunk  agen, 
As  you  have  seen  the  hunted  brant 
Leave,  for  a  breath,  his  watery  haunt, 
And  plunge  below  the  wave,  too  fleet 
For  the  quick  death  shot's  leaden  sleet. 

Wide  round  the  camp,  on  either  hand, 
The  turbid  Kansas,  rolling  grand 
Stretched  her  two  arms,  as  if  to  clasp 
The  broad  savannah  in  her  grasp, 
And  hold  the  voyageurs'  little  band, 
As  in  the  hollow  of  her  hand. 

But  where  is  He  whose  beacon  soul 
May  light  them  to  their  ocean  goal  ? 
They  lingered  long,  and  day  by  day, 
Looked  darkly  up  the  western  way, 
Looked  longing  down  the  eastern  plain, 
But,  vainly  longing,  looked  in  vain. 


THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP.  125 

Below  their  sunset's  golden  shore 
A  hundred  lengthening  leagues,  and  more, 
Their  journey  lay,  through  perils  sore  ; 
Beyond  the  Prairie's  weary  miles, 
Beyond  the  mountains'  rocky  piles, 
Right  through  the  desert,  stretching  blank 
Along  Nevada's  eastern  flank, 
And  o'er  the  white  Sierra's  crest, 
To  the  broad  waters  of  the  west. 

Already  the  blue  air  grew  dun, 
And  crimsoned  the  October  sun  ; 
Already,  on  the  steep  ascents, 
Had  coming  Winter  pitched  his  tents, 
And  mustering  all  his  savage  host, 
With  biting  gale  and  burning  frost, 
Far  forth,  by  howling  wind  and  rain, 
Sent  down  his  challenge  to  the  plain. 

Where  waits  the  Leader,  whose  right  hand 
Shall  lift  an  ensign  o'er  that  band, 
And  lead  them  to  the  sunset  land  ? 
The  darkened  sky  grows  yet  more  dun, 
Grows  redder  the  October  sun. 


126 


THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP. 

And  down  the  thick  air's  deeper  gloom, 
Its  setting  seems  the  eve  of  Doom. 
Ah,  well  they  know,  who  linger  there, 
The  meaning  of  that  darkening  air, 
And  what  Doom's-eve  its  dusky  robe 
Winds  round  the  sunset's  burning  globe  ! 

Night,  with  its  overarching  tomb, 

Shuts  down,  and  lo  !  the  dawn  of  Doom  ! 

One  lurid  ring,  from  left  to  right, 

Round  all  the  east,  involves  the  night. 

A  ring  of  fire,  and  fiery  cloud, 

That,  like  the  Torturer's  Iron  Shroud, 

Rolls  in  and  in,  its  narrowing  walls, 

While  down,  and  down,  the  dun  roof  falls  ! 

Ha!  by  tha:  closing  ring  they  read 

The  red  invader's  fatal  speed, 

Bannered  like  Israel's  desert  flight 

With  cloud  by  day  and  fire  by  night! 

Where  rides  the  Leader  ?     The  swift  wrath 

Is  rolling  on  his  very,  path  ; 

Or,  if  he  lingers  far  aback, 

Sweeps  out  the  records  of  their  track. 


THE    PEAIRIE    CAMP.  J27 

Redder  and  redder,  to  the  sky, 

It  heaves  its  lurid  arms  on  high  ; 

Darker  and  darker  glooms  the  vault, 

To  starless  horror,  in  the  assault  « 

Of  billowy  clouds,  whose  volumes  vast 

Snow  down  black  ashes,  hurtling  past. 

From  point  to  point,  rise  towering  higher, 

In  beacon  splendor  of  wild  Fire, 

The  signal  torches,  that  betray 

The  vortex  of  a  fiercer  fray  ; 

Where,  lingering  in  its  headlong  flow, 

To  gloat  above  a  nobler  foe, 

It  deepens  to  a  more  intense 

And  terrible  magnificence. 

There,  standing  long  unscathed  before, 
Some  forest  kings,  all  bearded  hoar, 
Have  roused  the  demons  of  the  fire, 
To  wilder  bursts  of  fell  desire — 
Arrears  of  their  vindictive  ire. 
The  crackling  boughs  that,  as  it  came, 
Rolled  upward,  molten  into  flame, 
Fall  crumbling  down  like  that  red  snow 
That  showered  on  Dante's  world  of  woe. 


128  THE     PEAIEIE    CAMP. 

Coiled  round  the  giant  trunks,  anon, 
The  serpent  flames  run  circling  on, 
And  o'er  the  topmost  spire  have  flung 
The  hiss  of  many  a  cloven  tongue  ; 
Till,  robbed  of  royal  robe  and  crown, 
One  here,  and  there,  goes  tottering  down, 
And  naked,  burning  to  the  heart, 
Alone,  the  mightiest  stand  apart, 
Tossing  their  blazing  arms  on  high, 
In  dumb  appealing  to  the  sky, 
Like  awful  Martyrs  ere  they  die  ! 

The  gallant  Leader,  where  '   oh  where  ? 
On  that  scorched  desert  of  despair, 
A  crumpled  cinder  black  and  bare  ? 
Or  flying  through  the  lurid  gloom, 
Dogged  by  the  fire-hounds  to  his  doom  ? 

The  anxious  voyageurs  gaze  in  vain, 

Across  the  fiery-girdled  plain, 

Or  listen  through  the  wakeful  camp, 

To  hear  a  fleet  steed's  charging  tramp. 

They  only  see  the  lurid  belt 

Drawn  inward,  as  the  broad  leagues  melt 


THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP.  J29 

Before  that  desolating  breath — 
That  rustling  of  the  wings  of  death  ! 
They  only  hear  the  distant  cry 
Of  wild-birds,  wailing  through  the  sky, 
And  now  the  long,  unearthly  bark 
Of  wolves  sent  trooping  down  the  dark, 
And  the  deep  jar  that  shakes  the  plain, 
Where  sweeps  the  Bison's  hurricane, 

All  night  a  million  tongues  of  fire 
That,  ever  nearer,  fluttered  higher, 
In  one  infernal  Pentecost, 
Seemed  gibbering  over  something  lost ! 

«, 
At  length  the  struggling  morning  came, 

And  turned  to  cloud  the  distant  flame  ; 
While,  nearer,  marched  its  baffled  ranks, 
Roaring  along  the  river-banks, 
As  mad  to  see  the  white  camp  gleam 
Securely,  by  the  guardian  stream. 

Ha  !  laughed  they  not  with  evil  glee, 
To  see  what  now  the  voyageurs  see  ! 
Hemmed  in  and  cheated  by  the  flood 
The  red-winged  fiend  has  cleared  the  wood  ! 
6* 


J3Q  THE    PEAIRIE    CAMP. 

And  leaps  from  groaning  tree,  to  earth, 
Clapping  his  million  hands  in  mirth, 
Licking  the  long  grass  from  the  sod 
And  burning  like  an  angry  god. 

Where  is  the  dauntless  Leader  !   where  ? 

To  teach  their  hands  to  do  arid  dare, 

And  snatch  them  from  this  hour's  despair  ? 

With  eager  will,  and  nerve  that  strains, 
They  strike  their  tents  and  pile  their  wains, 
While  yet  the  last  green  rood  remains  ; 
And  turn  the  frantic  cattle  towards 
The  shelter  of  the  river-fords  ; 
Then  thronging  by  the  watery  marge, 
Await  the  last  decisive  charge. 

"  Hurr;i;  !"     How  wild  a  yell  there  broke 
Above  the  rolling  flame  and  smoke — 
The  long  glad   whoop  that  well  declares 
The  fierce  joy  of  the  Delawares. 
He  comes  !   the  Leader  comes  at  last, 
His  steed  careering  like  the  blast; 
Right  onward  through  the  roaring  fire 
That  leaps  and  writhes  with  baffled  ire  ; 


THE    PEAIKIE    CAMP. 

And  close  behind  him,  side  by  side, 
His  ponderous  Leech  and  tawny  Guide. 

"  Hurrah  !"     The  welkin,  reeking  hot, 
Rings  with  their  shout  and  volleying  shot, 
The  mingled  cheer,  and  signal-round, 
To  lead  their  Leader,  lost  and  found  ! 

No  gladder  throng  may  goodly  hap 
Find  clustered  in  Home's  sunny  lap, 
When  children,  by  the  household-fire, 
Greet  newly  the  long-wandering  sire, 
Than  theirs,  amid  that  world  of  flame, 
\Vhen  the  beloved  Leader  came. 
Short  time  for  greeting  ;   with  one  charge 
They  dashed  across  the  burning  marge, 
Where  trampled  grass,  along  their  path, 
Disarmed  the  fire  of  half  its  wrath  ; 
And  o'er  the  black  unbounded  plain, 
They  took  their  joyful  march  again. 


132  THE    PKAIKIE    CAMP. 


SEQUEL    TO    THE    PRAIRIE    CAMP. 

Pale  Freedom  in  her  'leaguered  camp, 

Her  forehead  with  its  blood-sweat  damp, 

Sits  by  the  willows  drooping  low, 

Beside  the  Kansas'  mournful  flow, 

A  childless  Mother  in  distress, 

A  Widow  in  the  wilderness. 

Her  children  fled,  or  by  her  side, 

In  the  young  bloom  of  strength  and  pride, 

Fell,  bleeding  for  her  sake,  and  died, 

Smote  down  by  ruffians  foul  with  grime — 

The  eraseless  blot  of  every  crime. 

All  round  her,  over  plain  and  dell, 
Roars  the  red  fire  of  Slavery's  hell, 
One  lurid  blast  whose  volumed  swell 
Has  mown  her  golden  harvest  down, 
Devoured  the  homes  of  Lawrence  town, 
And  swept  the  cherished  rights  of  Man 
Into  black  ashes  where  it  ran. 


THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP.  133 

Missouri's  dregs  of  villain  blood, 
The  old  Palmetto's  traitor-brood, 
And  Georgia's  ruffians  ;  with  the  scum 
Of  all  their  Southern  Scoundreldom — 
Sped  on  by  Northern  slaves,  and  knaves, 
Who  have  defiled  their  Fathers'  graves, 
And  cast  the  taint  of  bestial  shame 
On  their  dead  Mothers'  sacred  name — 
More  foul  than  even  the  "  ravening"  Sire 
Of  their  dark  spirits,  could  desire — 
Devour  that  goodly  land  like  fire, 
And  blacken  deeper  the  dark  page 
That  bears  the  crime-blots  of  this  age, 
By  deeds  whose  meanness  would  debase 
The  horse-thief  Pawnee  in  his  chase, 
And  whose  sheer  horror,  to  behold, 
Might  turn  the  prairie  Wolf's  blood  cold. 

While  Freedom's  sons,  whose  blithe  advance 

Gave  life  to  all  that  broad  expanse, 

Who  planted  in  the  virgin  soil 

A  glorious  Future,  by  their  toil — 

Are  ringed  and  scorched  by  that  red  hell — 

Where  waits  the  Leader,  born  to  quell 


134  THE    PEAIEIE    CAMP. 

Its  burning  march,  and  trample  out 
The  fell  flame — charging  with  a  shout  ? 

Not  where  the  great  Dome  lends  her  flag 
To  swathe  the  whelps  of  Slavery's  hag, 
And  cowards  sneak  with  bludgeoned  hand 
To  smite  the  purest  of  our  land  ; 
Not  where  the  White  House — once  a  home 
For  laureled  Honor — has  become 
A  den  of  thieves  from  law  exempt, 
The  vortex  of  a  world's  contempt. 

Not  in  the  coffle  ranks  of  those 
Who  count  Oppression's  foes  their  foes, 
Whose  leader's  old  gray  head  has  on 
No  wreath,  from  grateful  Freedom  won  ; 
Nor  in  that  small  and  chosen  fold, 
To  alien-hate  and  Slavery  sold, 
Whose  moral  wisdom,  faint  and  dim, 
Stands  sponsor,  as  their  patroriym. 

No  !     But  the  South,  whose  poisoned  lees, 
And  bitter  scum,  flow  off  with  these, 
Has  left  for  us  the  pure  red  wine 
Of  her  best  blood  of 


THE    PEAIRIE    CAMP.  135 

FREMONT  !  the  Leader — born  to  quell 
The  insurgent  fires  of  Slavery's  hell. 

He  comes  !  thank  God,  we  wait  no  more  ! 

"  Hurrah  !"  the  wide  air  feels  the  roar 

Of  that  loud  cheer  which  millions  pour, 

Who  mingle  in  the  fiery  charge 

Across  the  Prairie's  burning  marge, 

To  trample  out  the  invading  Hame, 

Or  backward  scourge  it  whence  it  came — 

To  wipe  the  forehead,  torture-damp, 

Of  Freedom,  in  her  rescued  camp, 

Replant  upon  the  blackened  sod 

Her  golden  seeds,  for  Man  and  God, 

And  rear  again  her  fruitful  vine 

Broad  bowered  where  millions  might  recline, 

And  the  great  Future,  glad  and  free, 

Shall  celebrate  her  jubilee. 


THE    OATH. 


THEY  stood  together  on  a  hoary  peak 

Of  the  mid-mountains  ;  famine  in  their  eyes, 
And  the  deep  lines  of  want  on  brow  arid  cheek, 
A  ghastly  brotherhood,  grown  pale  and  weak, 

In  their  long  battle  with  the  rocks  and  skies  ! 
"  Swear  !"  cried  their  Chieftain's  voice,  above  the 

shriek 
Of  antheming  winds,  resounding  through  the  bleak 

Rock-chambers  of  the  hills  ;  old  memories 
That  wakened  sights  of  horror  and  despair, 

Deepened  the  solemn  cadence  of  his  speech  ; 
"  Ye  bold  companions  of  my  perils,  swear, 

That  come  what  may,  in  hunger's  utmost  reach, 
Ye  lift  no  hand  of  brother  upon  brother, 
But  rather  will  die  with,  than  live  upon,  each  other." 


THE    OATH.  137 

II. 

"  So  help  me  God !"     Their  mountain  altar  rung 

As  with  one  voice  to  that  wild  covenant. 
The  icy  crags,  like  horns  of  silver,  flung 
The  vow  to  their  far  brothers,  out  among 

The  caverns,  where  the  wolf  coiled,  cold  and 
gaunt, 

Who  heard  and  shuddered  with  new  dreams  of 

want ; 

The  hollow  caves,  with  their  sepulchral  tongue, 
Proclaimed  it  to  the  desert,  and  it  stung 

The  desert  with  more  famine.    "  Help  me  God !" 
And  God  did  help  them  in  the  wilderness. 

Desert  and  crag,  and  wolves  athirst  for  blood, 
Howled  their  unsated  hunger  and  distress, 

As  the  pale  band  moved  firmly  to  their  goal, 

Where  to  the  vine-clad  hills  Pacific's  waters  roll. 

III. 

Swear  !  ye  who  feed  upon  our  human  life, 

Who  have  drawn  out  the  red   blood  from  the 

veins 
Of  haggard  women,  by  your  godless  gains — 

The  pale,  thin  maiden  and  the  blighted  wife, 


138  T11*'     OATH. 

Starving  upon  your  justice  !  thou  whose  knife 
Is  at  the  throat  of  the  robbed  emigrant, 

O  " 

To  carve  still  deeper  what  scant  flesh  remains — 
Swear  !  ye  who,  when  the  hounded  fugitives  pant 

Northward,   still    clanking    their    half-shattered 

chains, 

Bark  on  their  track,  the  veriest  hounds  of  all ; 
And  you  who  keep  your  savage  carnival, 

Fed  fat  on  unbought  labor's  blood  and  brains  ! 
Swear,  that  no  more  ye  will  pollute  earth's  sod 
With  anthropophagy  ;  and  so  help  you  God  ! 


BACKING    OF    FRIENDS- 

FROM    AN    INCIDENT    IN    FREMONT'S    LIFE. 

Do  you  ask  me,  hardy  brothers, 

Toilers  at  the  wheel  and  plow, 
Men  of  pith  who  salt  your  gruel 

By  the  sweat-drops  of  your  brow, 
"  Men  of  thought  and  men  of  action," 

"  Bone  and  sinew"  of  the  land — 
Who  for  this  great  country's  Captain 

*Has  my  heart,  and  vote,  and  hand,- 
"I  shall  answer,  I  shall  tell  you," 

"  Live  or  perish,  sink  or  swim," 
I  will  vote  for  my  good  Captain  ; 

He  backed  me,  and  I'll  back  him  ! 


140  BACKING    OF    FEIENDS. 

Eastward  of  the  Inland  Ocean, 

Near  a  mountain's  frozen  peak, 
Toiling  through  the  wild  Cordilleras, 

Once  my  heart  and  limbs  grew  weak. 
"  Let  me  die  !"  I  said,  "  my  Captain  ; 

Let  me  die  !   I  can  not  go  !" 
0,  how  brother-like  he  answered, 

"  Die  ?   my  noble  fellow  !   no  /" 
And  he  bound  me  on  his  shoulders, 

As  my  failing  eyes  grew  dim, 
O'er  the  crag,  on  knees  blood-dripping  ; 

He  backed  me,  and  /'//  lack  him  ! 

O,  I  saw  him  when  our  brother — 

Now  who  sleeps  upon  the  trail, 
Through  the  night  of  snow  and  tempest 

Was  brought  dying,  cold  and  pale — • 
How  with  action  prompt  and  tender, 

And  a  woman's  melting  eye, 
He  made  famine  seem  less  bitter,        , 

Less  a  bitter  thing  to  die  ; 
But,  I  thought,  this  man  was  gentle, 

I  a  House — ah,  foolish  whim  ! 


BACKING    OF    FEIENDS.  J41 

On  his  red  knees,  like  a  brother, 
He  backed  me,  and  I'll  back  him ! 

All  who  served  him  learned  to  love  him, 

More  than  life,  should  peril  call ; 
They  were  equal  who  were  faithful, 

Black  and  white,  rich,  poor,  and  all. 
By  his  words  for  honest  labor, 

For  free  Laborer  and  soil, 
By  the  vast  wealth  opened  to  us 

In  his  own  unwearying  toil, 
All  true  hearts  with  me  may  answer, 

"  Here  is  Honor's  synonym  ; 
When  he  served  the  poor  and  needy, 

He  lacked  me,  and  Pll  back  him  !" 


CROSSING    THE    WAHSACII. 


SNOW  !  snow  !  snow  ! 
Before,  behind,  above,  and  below, 
On  rock  and  mountain  and  forest  tree, 
In  valley  and  canon,  pit,  and  rift, 
And  through  the  air  in  a  merciless  drift, 
A  powdery  smoke,  that  seemed  to  sift 
To  the  very  bones,  that  none  could  see 
Whither  they  went,  nor  where  might  be 
The  wallowing  path  of  the  Leader's  feet, 
Right  up  the  mountain  barrier,  beat. 

Snow  !   snow  !  snow  ! 

"  To  the  council,  hardy  warriors  !  ho  ! 


CROSSING    THE    WAH8ACH.  ^43 

What  word,  my  Braves,  of  the  better  way 
To  scale  the  \Vahsach's  perilous  edge 
And  through  the  gulfs  of  the  looming  ledge 
To  cleave  our  path,  like  a  rending  wedge  1 
'Tis  deadly  to  go  and  death  to  stay — 
Speak,  my  Delawares  !   shrewd  to  say 
What  path  is  best  in  a  dubious  track, 
Where  the  hungry  wolf  would  turn  him  back." 

"  Snow  !  snow  !  snow  ! 

My  brave  Commander,  we  can  not  go  ! 

Pits  under  pits  in  the  white-dark  lie, 
Gale  upon  gale  is  the  tempest's  shriek, 
Cliff  upon  cliff  is  the  mountain's  peak, 
And  the  ridges  beyond  are  sharp  and  bleak, 

The  treacherous  gulfs  will  cheat  the  eye, 

Where  the  struggling  hunter  will  sink  and  die — 
And  none  shall  find  his  bed  in  the  snow  ; 
My  brave  Commander,  we  can  not  go." 

"  Snow  !  snow  !  snow  ! 

Its  terrible  barrier  well  I  know, 

I  see  but  that  in  its  whirling  dance — 

But — '  can  not  ?' — where  did  my  warrior  learn 


144 


CROSSING    THE    WAHSACH. 


That  woman's  word  ?   or  how  to  turn 
His  back  to  a  peril  dark  and  stern  ? 
We  can,  we  must,  we  WILL  advance, 
And  the  Father  above  shall  guide  our  chance — 
Come  on  !   and  follow  the  forward  beat 
Of  my  tireless  club  and  my  naked  feet !" 

Snow  !  snow  !  snow  ! 
Around,  behind,  above,  and  below, 
In  a  whirling  cloud  of  fireless  smoke 
Over  drift  and  chasm  and  looming  crag, 
Where  a  mountain  goat  would  fail  to  drag 
His  powerless  feet — ashamed  to  lag, 
They  climbed  the  cliffs  as  the  measured  stroke 
And  tramp  of  the  dauntless  Chieftain  broke 
A  path  to  life,  and  led  them  on 
To  the  Home-like  fires  of  the  Parawan 


DEFERRED,    NOT    LOST.' 


IN  the  war  against  Oppression, 

In  the  battle  on  the  wrong, 
When  the  armies  of  the  Alien 
Seem  unconquerably  strong, 
And  the  Elect  a  moment  waver 
Chilled  by  waning  fortune's  frost, 

Mark  the  word  ! 
Victory  is  but  deferred, 
Never  lost. 

Freedom's  champions  are  immortal 
As  the  living  God  they  serve, 

*  Ba'e  Fremont's  Lfetter  to  GoVeVnor 
1 


146  "DEFERRED,    NOT    LOST." 

Not  a  blood-drop  falls  to  perish, 

Not  an  uttered  truth  shall  swerve 
From  its  renovating  mission, 
In  her  fire-tongued  Pentecost, 

To  her  word 
Victory  may  be  deferred, 
But  not  lost. 

All  the  Martyrs  of  old  Ages 

Have  bequeathed  that  faith  to  this, 
Lifting,  through  the  flames,  their  beakers 

Of  imperishable  bliss ! 
Rome,  and  Smithfield,  and  Geneva, 
Smoking  with  hell's  holocaust, 

Shriek  the  word, 

That  our  hopes,  though  long  deferred, 
Are  not  lost. 

All  the  legions  of  the  Persian 

In  that  memorable  Pass, 
Piled  to  swell  the  mausoleum 

Of  sublime  Leonidas, 
Made  THERMOPYLAE  a  watchword, 

Down  through  all  the  ages  toss'd — 


"DEFERRED,    NOT    LOST."  ^47 

Freedom's  word, 

Teaching  that  her  reign,  deferred, 
Is  not  lost. 

The  grim  courage  of  our  Fathers, 

Fighting  backwards  down  the  hill, 
While  their  burning  homes  at  Charlestown 

Only  fired  their  dauntless  will, 
Speaks  from  all  their  lowly  tombstones 
Worn  by  time,  and  over-moss'd, 

The  same  word, 
That  a  victory  long  deferred, 
Is  not  lost. 

Freedom's  martyr-souls  in  Kansas, 

Well  who  fought  alone  their  fight, 
Till  the  Land's  inaugurate  Traitor 

With  her  wronged  Arm  crushed  their  might, 
For  their  burning  homes  in  Lawrence, 
Yet  shall  teach,  at  Slavery's  cost, 

The  old  word, 

That  their  hour  is  but  deferred, 
And  not  lost ! 


148  "DEFERRED,     NOT    LOST." 

They  may  perish  in  their  bondage  ; 

But  a  lightning  flash  would  leap — 
From  their  blood-smoke  rolling  upward — 
Through  Oppression's  cavernous  deep, 
And  explode  its  fatal  fire-damp, 
Thundering  o'er  your  ruined  boast, 

This  wild  word  : 
In  their  victory  not  deferred 
Ye  are  lost ! 


RESUME. 


OLD  Poets  singing  to  their  lyres  of  gold, 

True  golden  Epics,  in  an  iron  age, 

Have  made  their  heroes.     God  above  made  mine — 

A  living  canticle  of  power  and  peace  : 

And  I  have  spoken  to  you  not  in  vain, 

My  countrymen  !   if  here  I  have  not  marr'd 

His  butter  singing  ;  striving  as  I  may 

To  interpret,  in  the  words  of  human  song, 

That  burning  Epos. 

If  my  birchen  torch  — 
The  simple  lamp  of  hands  inured  to  toil, 
Have;  caught  one  sparkle  from  the  SIGNAL  FIRES 
That  blaze  along  a  Hero's  mountain  march, 
So  kindling  with  their  glory  that  some  eyes, 


150  RESUME. 

Led  by  the  nearer  twinkle,  turn  to  read 

The  unborrowed  brightness,  and  forget  the  lamp 

That  flared  their  lids  up — it  is  not  in  vain 

That,  for  one  new  moon's  rounding,  I  lay  down 

The  sickle  for  the  signal,  the  keen  scythe 

For  the  rude  cythern — for  it  seems,  again, 

That  miracle  of  the  ages — a  True  Man, 

Has  risen  among  us — one  in  whose  large  soul 

Hero  and  Human  Brother  have  struck  hands, 

And  Worth  and  Worship  mingle  sisterly. 

JThen  only,  when  the  world  has  need  of  him, 
God  sends  the  Hero,  and  his  stature  marks 
The  measure  of  his  mission  ;  for,  what  means 
This,  which  we  crown  as  Hero,  but  the  sum 
And  concentration  of  a  People's  need, 
Fed  grandly,  to  repletion  of  its  wants — 
The  incarnate  answer  of  a  people's  prayer, 
Performing  God's  high  purpose  ? 

Show  the  Man, 

Towering  preeminent  above  his  peers, 
And  we  have  witness  of  a  giant  work — 
The  clear  prediction  of  what  Heaven  intends 
In  this  Man's  generation. 


RESUME.  151 

Show  the  Work, 

The  vast  necessities  of  Humanity — 
Some  hideous  monster  of  the  moral  world 
To  be  scourged  out,  and  driven  back  to  hell — ? 
Some  wrong's  dark  inroad  upon  human  rights 
To  be  repelled — or  a  wide  continent 
Of  primal  Chaos,  waiting  for  the  hand 
Of  a  great  conqueror  to  subdue  its  wilds 
To  the  broad  reign  of  Order — and  for  each 
Ripe  need,  the  Heavens  have  ripened  the  right  Man 
Him  choose,  sustain,  and  help,  or  the  ripe  need 
Grows  rotten  ripe,  and  the  uplifted  Arm 
Of  Benediction  falls  in  judgment  wrath  ! 

This  Land  has  uttered  the  prophetic  moan 

Of  its  great  want,  heard  faintly  through  the  shout 

Of  boastful  clamors,  and  the  noisy  whirl 

Of  its  sublime  activities,  too  long — 

Whole  decades  long,  while  parasite  Misrule 

Grew  fat  upon  her  vitals.     She  has  cast 

The  name  of  God,  and  the  diviner  Law, 

Out  of  her  councils  ;  for  the  wicked  rule, 

And  Mammon  sits  with  Anarchy  and  Crime, 

In  her  high  places — and  the  people  mourn. 


1 52  K  £  s  u  M  £ 

One  cloud  has  deepened  its  broad  thunder-folds, 
From  a  small  handbreath  to  a  mountain  mass, 
Behind  whose  volumed  blackness  the  faint  light 
Has  struggled  long  and  fitfully  ;  but  the  Man 
Came  not,  to  answer  the  mute  questioning 
Of  pained  hearts,  whether  in  the  lurid  sky 
Dawned  the  new  day  of  Liberty  and  Peace, 
Or  garnered  lightnings  fluttered  their  red  wings, 
Precursive,  for  the  last  destroying  swoop  ! 

When  the  night  gathered,  and  the  perilous  fire 
Stooped  imminent,  the  need  produced  its  Man. 
Then  rose  our  martyrs  whom  the  world  knows 

not, 

Whose  names  have  been  a  hissing  in  the  Land, 
The  moral  champions  of  outraged  Right, 
Whose  names  shall  be  a  glory  in  the  Land; 
Their  great,  indignant  hearts,  with  fiery  beat, 
Hurled  renovating  pulses  through  the  veins 
Of  the  sin-fevered  and  sin-torpid  mass, 
Till  the  Land's  hunger-cry  becomes  a  shout 
That  will  not  hush  till  Freedom's  right  shall  reign. 

Perjured,  and  stained  with  every  crime — itself 
The  crowning  crime  of  crimes  —dark  Shivery 


KESUME.  153 

Has  rolled  her  turbid  waters,  wave  on  wave, 
Over  the  smiling  South-Land,  laying  waste 
Her  Eden  gardens,  till  the  wolves  come  back 
And  howl  among  her  desolated  homes  ! 
New  lands,  new  victims,  and  new  devotees 
Must  fall  before  her,  feeding,  still  in  vain, 
Her  still  insatiate  famine,  till,  forsworn 
The  oaths  she  took  in  solemn  covenant — 
Which,  our  deep  sin  in  making,  bates  no  jot 
Of  her  deep  perjury  in  forswearing — she 
Leaps  her  Missouri  bound,  as  lightly  as  fire, 
Cruel  as  death,  and  false  as  nether  hell, 
And  holds  young  Kansas  by  her  bleeding  throat ! 

Now  by  the  Throne,  and  Him  who  sits  thereon  ! 
And  by  our  Souls,  we  swear,  weighing  our  words 
With  finest  scruples,  swear,  that  the  black  fiend, 
Shall  lose  her  clutch  from  that  fair  Sufferer, 
And  print  no  track  of  her  polluted  foot 
On  God's  free  soil,  our  heritage,  again, — 
Or  perish  where  she  stands  ! 

This,  if  I  read 

The  indignation  of  free  hearts  aright, 
Is  thi'ir  deep  vow  and  purpose,  this  the  work, 


154 


RESUME. 


One  task  of  many  worthy,  which  demands 
And  prophesies  the  Coming  Man,  once  more. 

Let  not  the  word-strong  moralist,  whose  words 

Have  sent  true  pulses  through  these  working  souls, 

Debar  their  working.      It  is  theirs  to  braid 

Organic  lightning,  from  his  moral  light 

Whose  limbless  flame  may  spread  diffusive  life, 

In  broad  unbolted  flashes,  but  has  need 

Of  the  Strong  Arm  to  work  its  iiery  will 

Upon  one  purpose — needs  the  pointed  steel 

Of  sword-armed  Themis,  or  the  dreader  edge 

By  Duty  called  and  Freedom  sanctified — 

Of  red  Bellona,  to  call  down  its  fire 
In  triple  bolts  on  hoar  Iniquity. 

The  imperative  need  its  index  finger  lifts, 

Pointing  aloft,  to  mark  the  magnitude 

Of  Heaven's  Elect,  the  stature  of  his  soul. 

Amid  the  ripening  of  the  mighty  Want, 

We  turn  to  ask,  where  ripens  the  right  Man  ? 

And  find  him,  tracked  by  all  his  glowing  deeds, 

—  A  great  life's-labor  for  his  pupilage — 

Still  learning  right  Rule  in  God's  Normal. School, 


EESUME.  155 

The  wilderness  and  mountain,  where  of  old 
The  peerless  renovators  of  the  world 
Took  their  stern  lessons. 

He,  through  giant  toils 
And  more  gigantic  perils,  set  his  name 
Upon  the  everlasting  mountain-tops, 
And  made  the  desert  vocal  with  his  praise. 

In  the  wide  waste  of  trackless  wilderness, 

lie  asked  the  silent  stars  above  his  head,       [him  ; 

'•  Whither?  and  where?"  and  the  stars  answered 

High  on  the  snow-capp'd  mountain,  whose  abyss 

No  line  and  plummet  sounded,  he  inquired 

Of  the  thin  Air,  and  the  thin  Air  replied, 

"  Thus   far,    oh,    soul-winged    Eagle !    thou    hast 

soared 

In  the  high  places  of  the  Universe." 
He  bade  the  homeless  wilds  to  give  him  meat, 
And  the  wilds  fed  him,  and  the  river-springs 
Brought  water  to  him  in  the  lonely  place, 
Till  all  the  wilds  grew  famished  and  athirst, 
And  Hunger  walked  the  dreary  blank  with  him  ! 

The  virgin  Realms  that  slept  in  solitude, 


156 


EfiSUMfi. 


Or  only  woke  to  the  wild  wlioop  of  men 
Fiercer  than  wolves — fair  Realms  as  beautiful 
As  Tirzah  of  the  Hills,  and  terrible 
As  the  ranked  squadrons  of  a  bannered  army  ! — 
His  hand,  to  the  swart  hand  of  Labor,  gave, 
As  a  young  Bride  adorned  for  her  espousals. 

The  Golden  Gate  of  the  new  Ophir  rolled 

Unjarring  on  its  hinges  to  let  in 

Our  swarming  vigor,  at  his  magic  word, 

The  "  open  sesame"  of  his  fiery  valor  : 

And  that  vast  hollow  in  the  giant  hand 

Of  our  world-beckoning  Continent,  where  now 

The  fleshly  Saints  build  up  their  Canaan — 

With  all  its  grandeur  of  eternal  hills, 

Arid  beauty  of  green  meadows,  and  that  deep 

Where  the  sad  billows  of  the  Inland  Sea, 

Salt  as  the  grave,  break  on  the  Utah  rocks, 

And  whiten  their  dark  bases — first  to  him 

Unveiled  the  secrets  of  its  lonely  depths, 

And  changed  wild  Fable  into  wondrous  Fact. 

When  the  grim  Lion  of  the  Isles  came  down — 
Warily  creeping  from  his  northern  lair — 


EfiSUMfi.  157 

Where  sat  the  jeweled  Princess  of  the  West, 

Leaned  on  her  white  Nevada's  ermined  arms — 

Or  chained,  or  charmed,  upon  her  virginal  hills, 

With  old  Pacific  moaning  at  her  feet, 

By  chance  the  keen  eye  of  the  voyager  saw 

The  unsheathing  claws,  his  quick  ear  heard  the  purr, 

Prelusive  to  the  leap — and  his  quick  hand 

Snapped  the  corroded  fetter,  and  set  free 

Her  "  Beauty"  from  the  spoiler,  and  the  "  Beast." 

The  baffled  Jesuit,  and  the  lynx-eyed  Spy, 
And  the  false  Leader  of  a  cruel  band, 
Muttered  vain  curses  on  their  swift  defeat. 
The  foe,  far  off  in  their  delightful  dreams, 
But  near  at  hand,  with  his  mysterious  Glass 
Reading  their  horoscope — from  studious  toil 
Leapt  up,  full  armed,  and  snatched   the   glowing 

prize  ! 

There  Science  put  on  valor,  and  the  Stars 
Fought  against  Sisera ! 

For  his  swift  success, 

Where  to  have  lingered  had  been  final  loss, 
This  Nation,  jealous  of  her  Ocean  Sire — 
By  all  she  hopes  for  in  her  proud  expanse, 


158  RESUME. 

By  all  she  won  in  that  victorious  Ride, 
Owes  to  this  Man  her  dearest  gratitude. 

Humanity  no  less,  in  that  broad  land 
Stands  debtor  to  him  for  a  good  work  done. 
When  other  hands  were  forging  darker  chains 
For  the  fair  Captive,  his  shook  off  the  bolts, 
And,  by  his  voice  in  Freedom's  trial  hour, 
Her  Golden  Hills  were  rescued  from  tha  clank 
Of  Slavery's  chain,  the  snap  of  Slavery's  whip  ; 
And  unborn  millions  shall  rise  up  in  joy, 
To  call  him  Blessed  as  they  call  him  Great. 

His  life  has  gone  up  to  its  regal  seat, 

Beyond  the  reign  of  failure  and  mischance — 

Even  in  this  pupilage  for  a  vaster  work, 

Complete  in  greatness  of  a  task  well  done. 

We  call  him  to  that  work,  for  our  Land's  Good, 

Nor  offer  laurels  greener  than  his  own. 

The  idolatrous  peoples  have  bowed  down  before 

The  Golden  Calf  of  Commerce— bent  so  low, 

They  see  not  the  dark  stains  of  human  blood 

Upon  its  horrid  altar,  and  forget 

The  living  God  of  justice  and  of  truth. 


RESUME.  159 

We  call  our  Leader  from  his  Sinai  peaks, 
To  bring  the  LAW  ;  not  less  the  Eternal  Code, 
Than  that  grave  record,  read  in  fathom  snows, 
When    the    whole    mountain    smoked,    and    ever) 

heast 

That  touched  it  died!* — we  call  him,  so  to  advance 
To  him  one  little  of  the  mighty  debt 
We  owe  the  Future,  and  the  Future  him. 
Her  myriad  voices,  and  imploring  hands, 
Far-seen  in  clear  prevision,  supplicate 
By  all  she  may  be,  or  may  fail  to  be, 
That  we  be  faithful  in  this  fearful  hour, 
And  do  that  justice  to  a  people's  hope, 
That  mercy  to  the  peeled  and  trodden  down, 
Which  is  but  lovelier  justice — laid  on  us 
By  solemn  mortmain  of  the  immortal  dead, 
By  the  stern  crisis  of  the  eventful  Now, 
And  all  the  periled  Future  in  our  hands  ! 

We  call  the  Leader  gladly,  for  we  know 
The  startling  summons  can  not  be  in  vain, 
Whatever  fate  or  favor,  frowns  or  smiles. 
The  millions  gather  round  his  glowing  page, 

*  See  Bigelow's  FREMONT,  page  8C9. 


160  RESUME. 

And  catch  some  inspiration  from  his  fire. 
His  stirring  Name,  heard  far  away  before, 
Is  not  an  echo,  but  a  pealing  shout — 
A  Power  among  our  jubilating  hills — 
A  Sunrise  on  our  plains  and  valley-paths. 

The  very  coward,  though  he  shrink  and  quake 
At  the  dim  story  of  his  daring  march, 
Will  feel  some  flutter  of  exulting  blood, 
Tending  to  nobler  manhood,  evermore, 
To  see  the  Hero  trampling  down  despair, 
And  treading  firmly  to  sublime  Success, 
Where  the  tough  brute  reeled  stiffly  back,  and  died, 
And  the  hard  savage  dare  not  follow  him  ! 

This  age,  among  her  manifold  wealths  and  wants, 
Had  need  of  him,  to  scourge  the  craven  blood 
Of    men,    grown    paltering    hucksters,    or    sleek- 
combed 

Young  foplings,  toying  with  a  lady's  fan, 
In  perfumed  parlors — to  some  dash  of  health 
And  manly  hardihood,  which  alone  make  stuff 
For  manly  souls,  and  brains  for  manly  thought. 
The  stern,  unmeant  rebuke  of  his  great  life, 


Stings  idle  natures  lapped  in  moneyed  ease, 
And  plucking  the  ripe  fruits  of  honor's  tree 
From  boughs  bent  to  them — like  a  goading  whip 
In  a  strong  hand,  till  latent  nobleness 
Leaps  to  the  cheek,  and  lights  the  hopeful  flush 
Of  mingled  shame  and  better  purposes — 
Or  all  the  innate  dastard  stands  confest, 
In  plotting  envy  arid  a  powerless  rage. 

This  life  were  worthy  of  its  great  renown 

If,  ending  here,  it  lent  no  richer  fruit 

Than  its  high  lessons  for  the  young  and  brave — 

Of  modest  worth  and  golden  temperance, 

Heart's  purity,  and  reverential  soul — 

For  strong  oppression  an  instinctive  hate — 

A  natural  sympathy  for  wronged  and  weak — 

Crowning  intrepid  valor,  and  firm  will, 

And  a  wise  mind,  that  shakes  familiarly 

The  hand  of  Nature  in  her  secretest  home. 

But  even  exuberant  Fancy  were  too  poor 
To  tell  its  vast  beneficence  of  worth 
To  that  Grand  Future  he  has  served  so  well, 
When  the  swift  tides  of  human  life  have  rolled 


102  EESUME. 

Their  endless  billows  over  all  the  West — 
Now  o'er  the  Rocky  Mountains  leaping  white  — 
Now  o'er  the  steop  Nevada,  to  the  sea  ; 
From  where  St.  Helen  lifts  her  fiery  horn, 
And  hoary  Hood  flings  back  on  Oregon 
The  sunrise  gold,  from  his  eternal  snows, 
To  the  Sierras  of  the  utmost  South, 
That  guard  the  Land  of  Gold — his  memory 
Shall  flourish  greener  than  their  viny  slopes, 
And  purer  than  their  never-trodden  peaks. 

The  endless  harp-strings  of  the  captive  Zeus, 
— Old  thunder-god  forlorner,  at  his  task, 
Than  Saturn  in  his  exile — pining  out 
His  lightning  soul  upon  the  tremulous  wire, 
Shall  whisper  in  one  breath,  from  sea  to  sea, 
The  Name  we  blazon  on  our  banner-folds  ; 
And  the  chained  dragon  of  the  flying  car, 
Rousing  the  echoes  with  a  thunder  tramp, 
From  bald  Katahdin  to  St.  Francis'  Bay, 
Will  give  it  with  a  shriek  to  all  the  hills  ; 
And  mount  to  mount  shall  toss  our  banner-cry, 
"  FREE  MEN,  FREE  SOIL,  FREMONT,  and  VICTORY  !" 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 
This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


MAR 23 1969  28 


HhiCKIVgD 


MAR 


UOAN  DEPT, 


ICLF  Htl 


LD  2lA-40m-2,'69 
(J6057slO)476 — A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB  3745 


